Amplifying the housing crisis
The housing crisis in the Yarra Ranges is stark. With 81% of homes owner occupiers (93% on the Dandenong Ridge), rental opportunities are critically limited, exacerbating housing insecurity, particularly for women over 55—a demographic increasingly vulnerable to homelessness.
This crisis is compounded by the region’s exposure to disasters. The Yarra Ranges has endured significant disaster events, making it the second-most disaster-affected area in Australia after Baw Baw. Fires, floods, and storms batter communities here repeatedly, leaving little time for recovery and increasing the strain on housing availability.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing, 2021 (Enumerated data).
In November, President Belinda Young joined ten community representatives, Melissa Redsell OAM, Nick Hudson, Bernie Shakeshaft, Christine Robertson OAM, Amar Singh JP, Frank Oberklaid, Clair Harris, Selina Walker, and Blair McFarland, from across Australia in Sydney for AMPLIFY’s National Housing Amplification. Together, they tackled 46 proposed housing reforms presented by think tanks, academics, industry leaders, and advocacy groups. Below are our reflections of the event and task at hand.
“Over time housing has become about more than just meeting our basic needs. Our homes keep us safe, enable us to be with our families and provide a place from which we can thrive. Our homes now also play a big part in our financial success and provide security in our retirement. In expanding the purpose of our homes, we have begun to make decisions that are counterproductive to things we care deeply about, like our young people being able to purchase their own homes, having a safe and secure home to live in and eradicating homelessness. The policies and processes of some of our leaders are deeply unhelpful and have also undermined housing affordability, housing options and housing security for decades.
We understand better that many factors that have been driving up the costs of housing, making housing less secure for people and limiting the choice of homes. They include various tax arrangements, reduced investment in public and social housing, inconsistent tenancy regulations, thinking about homes as investments, insufficient construction workforce and increasing competition for housing.
As a consequence, we are experiencing -
Home ownership rates falling and with that, an important path to economic independence. The share of homes sold that a median-income household could afford declined from 39 per cent in 2020–21 to 13 per cent in 2022–23 – its lowest level on record. Those on low incomes now have almost no chance of being able to ever buy a home.
Homes that don’t fit us. We wanted bigger houses and built places further away and with more bedrooms than we need, larger entertainment areas and spaces. At the same time, we live with fewer people and avoid downsizing.
Rents are accelerating faster than average weekly earnings and rental properties aren’t always providing a stable alternative home – with a typical lease only 6-12 months compared to Germany and the Netherlands where it is indefinite. There are more and more people without a home, which is increasing homelessness.
We know that there are no silver bullets to improve housing quickly. And there are different ways to get to the same result. It is clear we need to do several things simultaneously to address this complex issue and help sow the seeds to help future generations.
In response, together we selected 12 housing reforms from 46 submitted by experts for Australians to discuss. We chose these 12 because they target different parts of the affordability, choice and security challenge and, in our view, represent the most important areas for reform.
Is there more that we could do? There always is, but with AMPLIFY, with the Community Heroes behind them, we can't think of a better shot at holding the only housing reform conversation Australia needs right now – a big public one. “
We hope that through Belinda’s involvement in this initiative, we can make improvements to housing tenure in the Yarra Ranges.