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Housing safety net shrinking

Greta Andrews-TaylorThe West Australian
According to the Federal Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), there was a decline in the amount of social housing households in WA from 4.4 per cent of all households in 2014 to 4.1 per cent in 2020.
Camera IconAccording to the Federal Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), there was a decline in the amount of social housing households in WA from 4.4 per cent of all households in 2014 to 4.1 per cent in 2020. Credit: chameleonseye/Getty Images/iStockphoto.

Rising rents and property values have received significant attention in recent months, placing strain on many Western Australian households as they seek to make ends meet.

A key contributor to the accelerated market, according to industry figures, is constrained supply – a phenomenon which has reached even the safety net designed to catch people unable to afford a place to live.

According to the Federal Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), there was a decline in the amount of social housing households in WA from 4.4 per cent of all households in 2014 to 4.1 per cent in 2020.

“This is a major decline in social housing, which means it is harder for people squeezed out of the rental market to find a home,” Everybody’s Home Spokesperson Kate Colvin told West Real Estate.

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“In WA it isn’t only the share of social housing households that has fallen, but the number of social housing properties, which has also fallen each year since 2015.”

According to AIHW figures, 1365 social housing dwellings were considered to be overcrowded in 2020, while 4924 were underutilised.

Ms Colvin said this served to exacerbate the lack of appropriate housing supply.

“Overcrowding indicates that families either need homes with more bedrooms, or there are family members staying because they have no home of their own, so increasing the number of social housing homes overall would fix the overcrowding,” she said.

“Underutilised dwellings often means properties where someone has raised their family and then children have grown up and moved out, so there are spare bedrooms.

“It can be very traumatic to move people on from the home they have lived in for years, and it doesn’t really help supply of properties, because the shortest supply of social housing tends to be in the one and two-bedroom properties.”

According to Ms Colvin, the biggest issue currently facing social housing in WA is a lack of adequate investment.

“The WA Government needs to make investing in social housing growth an urgent priority,” she said. “They have recently put additional investment into better maintaining social housing, but not into a significant growth program.

“Any investment made by the WA Government would be much larger if the Federal Government were to partner with them in a social housing growth program.”

REIWA President Damian Collins said the WA rental market remained very affordable for most people, however, REIWA acknowledged that for those people that fell within the vulnerable categories of experiencing homelessness and/or requiring social and affordable rental accommodation, affordable housing was still out of reach.

“WA has been the most affordable place in the country for rentals for some time now, with the proportion of family income needed to meet rent payments sitting at 18.7 per cent,” he said. “For comparison, in New South Wales, the proportion of income required to meet rent payments is 28.6 per cent.”

CoreLogic data last month revealed that over the 12 months until June 30 this year the national average dwelling price increased by 13.5 per cent. Meanwhile, national rents for houses increased by 15.1 per cent and units by 8.1 per cent.

Taking a closer look at Perth specifically, the city’s monthly values growth averaged 1.4 per cent between January and May 2021, with just a 0.2 per cent lift last month.

Mr Collins said housing shortages were the biggest factor affecting the rental market, claiming there was a need for a national plan for housing on a bi-partisan basis that was supported by all levels of government.

“Improving housing supply will improve overall affordability,” he said.

“Governments can contribute by improving approval times, reducing the cost of the development application process, increasing density in appropriate locations, accelerated land release programs and establishing a government-led mechanism for reliable data on housing demand and supply.”

Private investors are also an important part in this, Mr Collins explained. He said it was imperative they were not discouraged from buying rental properties in WA.

“With the Residential Tenancies Act review currently underway, we need to ensure the Act is not made more onerous for investors, or it will scare them off and put more pressure on governments and charities to provide rental housing,” he said.

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