No home at the end of the road

Single, older women in Australia have emerged as a group vulnerable to housing insecurity and as being in danger of homelessness in their old age. Wage inequality and interrupted working lives due to childcare responsibilities are contributing factors and have meant that women, especially single women, have a decreased capacity to acquire housing equity or retirement savings in their own right. In addition, social changes that permit women to choose whether or not they marry and which also enable serial monogamy means there has been significant growth in the number and proportion of single, older women in the population. These social changes mirror the lives of the post-Second World War baby boomers and the cumulative impacts are now being felt as this generation approaches retirement. These women now face further disadvantage in the housing market as purchase prices and rental costs have risen, reflecting a number of factors including a shortage of housing supply. The survey sought information about this group and their plans for retirement, and in particular their interest in purchasing a \u27equity land trust\u27 (ELT) apartment. As a model of affordable housing the ELT model excludes the cost of land and the scheme maintains properties as being perpetually affordable. Findings revealed that a third were in housing stress and could not contemplate purchasing even if subsidised. A minority had already purchased but were not confident that they would be able to hold onto their homes. The rest had sufficient incomes to purchase an ELT apartment but few had savings and many had debt. This tended to reflect pessimism about ever purchasing and resulted in living for the moment. However the majority were very interested the potential to purchase affordable housing, and indicated this would change their savings habits

Going it alone: single, low needs women and hidden homelessness

In early 2006 WISHIN (Women’s Information Support and Housing in the North) was approached by North East Housing Service (NEHS) who were concerned about the number of single women over 35, without dependents who were ringing their service for assistance and whom they were unable to assist. When discussed it was felt that such women would be unlikely to be assisted through the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) because, as low needs women, they did not represent target groups. WISHIN agreed to work on the issue. Before WISHIN could propose solutions however, we needed to understand both how prevalent the problem might be and more about the women who were being ‘turned away’. A Steering Group of consumers reflecting the cohort and the agencies involved was formed to drive the work and a project worker, Dr Andrea Sharam was assigned the task of managing the research task. With the assistance of the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust, the Reichstein Foundation and the E.M. Horton Family the project set out to ‘test demand’, and find out more about these women. This report provides the result of this research. The assumption that underpinned the work was that service rationing and tight eligibility requirements meant that certain women were unlikely to receive assistance. If their issue was housing affordability rather than personal characteristics/needs then they were likely to miss out on services. Being poor is insufficient reason to be granted housing support. As service providers WISHIN and NEHS worried that such currently ‘unmet demand’ could manifest itself later as clients in their target groups – that is, those who are high needs such as those with drug, alcohol or mental health issues, or who have experienced domestic violence. WISHIN and NEHS wondered about the bias against poverty (as opposed to personal characteristics) that pervades thinking on eligibility when women’s earning capacity is significantly less than men’s. The Steering Group wondered what these women did when they couldn’t get assistance. Anecdotal cases suggested gender mattered. This led the Steering Group to consider if women have different adaptation strategies to men when it came to housing security and homelessness, and whether this meant women did not identify as homeless, and are not identified as homeless by most researchers, funding bodies and services, when they should be

The voices of mid-life women facing housing insecurity

Single, older women in the State of Victoria, Australia have emerged as a group experiencing housing insecurity and being highly vulnerable to homelessness in their old age. One of the most surprising aspects of this trend is the propensity for these women to be tertiary educated. Focus groups reveal education as a significant means by which these women improved their economic positions, although most had entered female dominated, hence poorer paying industries. However, in most cases their gains came too late in their lives and/or have been undermined by labour market flexibility that has resulted in precarious employment with retrenchments, casualisation, and reductions in hours of work a common experience.&nbsp

Making apartments affordable: moving from speculative to deliberative development

Urban consolidation policies in Australia presuppose apartments as the new dominant housing type, but much of what the market has delivered is criticised as over-development, and as being generic, poorly-designed, environmentally unsustainable and unaffordable. In contrast to the usual focus on planning regulation and construction costs as the primary issues needing to be addressed in order to increase the supply of quality, affordable apartment housing this paper uses Ball’s (1983) ‘structure of provision’ approach to outline the key processes informing apartment development to reveal a substantial gap in critical understanding of how apartments are developed in Australia, and identifies economic problems not previously considered by policymakers. Using mainstream economic analysis to review the market itself, the authors found high search costs, demand risk, problems with exchange, and lack of competition present key barriers to achieving greater affordability and limit the extent to which ‘speculative’ developers can respond to the preferences of would be owner-occupiers of apartments. The existing development model, which is reliant on capturing uplift in site value, suits investors seeking rental yields in the first instance and capital gains in the second instance, and actively encourages housing price inflation. This is exacerbated by lack of density restrictions, such as have existed in inner Melbourne for many years, which permits greater yields on redevelopment sites. The price of land in the vicinity of such redevelopment sites is pushed up as landholders\u27 expectation of future yield is raised. All too frequently existing redevelopment sites go back onto the market as vendors seek to capture the uplift in site value and exit the project in a risk free manner. The paper proposes three major reforms. Firstly, that the market for apartment development be re-designed following insights from the economic field of ‘Market Design’ (a branch of Game Theory). A two-sided matching market for new apartments is proposed, where demand-side risks can be mitigated via consumer aggregation. Secondly, consumers should be empowered through support for  ‘deliberative’, or ‘do-it-yourself’ (DYI) development models, in order to increase competition, expand access, and promote responsiveness to consumer needs and preferences. Finally, planning schemes need to impose density restrictions (in the form of height limits, floor space ratios or bedroom quotas) in localities where housing demand is high, in order to dampen speculation and de-risk development by creating certainty. However restrictions on over-development on larger infill sites needs to be offset by permitting intensification of ‘greyfield’ suburbs. Aggregating existing housing lots to enable precinct regeneration and moderate height and density increases would permit better use of airspace thus allowing design outcomes that can optimise land use while retaining amenity

Utilities and residential tenancies - part 2: future directions for rental housing standards

This report considers a range of data and regulatory and policy interventions from international and domestic jurisdictions with the objective of improving the provision of utilities for private rental housing in Victoria. Overview There are a range of issues affecting the provision of utilities to tenants, particularly: low income households are more likely to occupy rental dwellings with a combination of low thermal effi ciency and ineffi cient appliances tenants are unlikely to be able to upgrade appliances or relocate to dwelling of higher thermal quality due to other market pressures energy consumption and costs are higher for many tenants relative to equivalant households in other tenures market processes and programs often preclude participation from residential tenants or have onerous access barriers Future Directions for Rental Housing Standards provides: a discussion of options for energy effi ciency improvements in the conclusion of Part one a discussion of current regulatory processes concerning the energy and water effi ciency of private rental housing options for improving the provision of energy and water services including both regulatory and non-regulatory options a focus on the policy processes arising from Council of Australian Government (COAG) reform

Identifying the financial barriers to deliberative, affordable apartment development in Australia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the financial barriers to the supply of affordable apartments in Australia and examine whether demand aggregation and ‘deliberative development’ (self-build) can form a new affordable housing ‘structure of provision’. Design/methodology/approach Market design, an offshoot of game theory, is used to analyse the existing apartment development model, with ‘deliberative development’ proposed as an innovative alternative. Semi-structured interviews with residential development financiers are used to evaluate whether deliberative development could obtain the requisite development finance. Findings Our investigation into the financial barriers of a deliberative development model suggest that while there are hurdles, these can be addressed if key risks in the exchange process can be mitigated. Hence, affordability can be enhanced by ‘deliberative development’ replacing the existing speculative development model. Research implications Market design is a new innovative theoretical approach to understanding the supply of housing, offering practical solutions to affordable apartment supply in Australia. Originality/value This research identifies financial barriers to the supply of affordable apartments; introduces theoretical understandings gained from market design as an innovative solution; provides evidence that a new structure of building provision based on ‘deliberative development’ could become a key means of achieving more affordable and better designed apartments

Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into affordable housing 20 August 2014: De-risking development of medium density housing to improve housing affordability and boost supply

This submission addresses the problem of housing price inflation, the chronic under-supply of new housing stock, and the resultant decline in housing affordability for low and middle income households. It specifically focusses on the supply of medium density housing (multi-unit development) in Melbourne, although we believe that the observations made about housing in supply in Melbourne are relevant in other urban centres and to other types of housing supply. In terms of medium density housing (MDH) our concern also extends to the poor quality and design. Why the market tends to deliver generic apartments of poor quality and design which are uncompetitive with lower density housing and amenity despite planning objectives, and how this apparently intractable problem can be overcome is the topic of this submission..

Small customers

Abstract not available

Power industry re-structuring

Abstract not available

When infrastructure is welfare: reconciling the irreconcilable

Abstract not available