The big social reforms outlined by the government last week – the aged-care package and the introduction of a National Disability Insurance Scheme – will revolutionise the way we provide care in Australia. The tricky thing is, by the time these reforms are up and running, the foundations on which they are built – namely widespread home ownership and the availability of affordable secure rental housing – will be crumbling.
Rates of home ownership among 24 to 35 year olds have been declining over the past 20 years and recent reports suggest two-thirds of Sydney residents age 35 and under are completely locked out of home ownership. Those who do own their own home are carrying more debt and paying off mortgages for longer, often into retirement. We are seeing a seismic shift in housing in Australia, yet governments seem oblivious to the consequences.
If fewer people own their homes outright, staying in the family home and paying for the aged-care services to do that becomes harder. If people with a disability cannot get affordable and secure housing, no amount of support will help them to live lives of dignity.
Of course, housing security doesn’t have to be about home ownership. There’s no reason that home care and disability services can’t be provided to people in a rental property.. The trouble is that tenancy laws in every state and territory are heavily skewed to the interest of landlords and away from long-term housing security for tenants. Current tenancy laws make it easier for tenants to be evicted for no reason, or with little notice, and harder to get any property changes or improvements.
Here’s a real life example: An elderly tenant was living independently in a rental home but needed the bathroom modified to remove a step, so he could get in and out of the shower. He found a grant to pay for property modifications but his landlord refused the changes. Instead, the tenant needed home help to be washed by hand and eventually moved into a residential care facility. This is exactly what the federal government’s reforms are trying to avoid but it’s a future many older tenants and people with disabilities will face.
Aside from having little control over your home, imagine having to house hunt at the age of 75 because your landlord wants to sell. This is not uncommon and it is going to get worse.
Traditionally these problems have been overcome by public housing that offers more security to older people and people with a disability who don’t own their own home. But the public housing system is not what it used to be. Recent reports in NSW and Victoria have revealed massive maintenance backlogs and decaying public housing stock. Across the country, waiting lists have expanded as the number of properties available has declined.
The public housing system has become financially unviable, not because there’s something wrong with the system, but because successive governments have forgotten a simple truth – it’s not profitable to provide low-cost housing. That’s why businesses don’t do it and why governments need to subsidise it.
If younger generations are locked out of home ownership, it will be harder to deliver aged care services in the home. If our public housing system crumbles, people with a disability will be stuck with properties that make living independent lives harder. If we do not reform the private rental market, the people least able to afford it will be bounced from rental home to rental home.
And yet the budget had no new money or initiatives to improve housing affordability. While funding for housing was urgently needed in this budget, by next year it will be critical. The same way it takes long-term planning and commitment to build a home, it takes long-term planning and commitment to build a housing system.
Housing is the most basic building block of life – you cannot age well or live a life of dignity without it. So while the national disability insurance scheme and aged-care reforms are bold moves, it is astounding that such a big reforming budget failed to address the very foundations upon which every other social reform depends.
Sarah Toohey is Australians for Affordable Housing representative.
View Article (off-site)- Topics:
- Housing, NDIS, Policy reform
- Author:
- Sarah Toohey
- Source:
- The Age
- Date published:
- Mon 14th May, 2012