Premier Peter Malinauskas to revive SA Housing Trust in Housing Roadmap

The SA Housing Trust will be reborn as part of Premier Peter Malinauskas’ blueprint to ease a home supply crisis.

Reviving the SA Housing Trust brand in a bid to ease a supply crisis will be a central plank of Premier Peter Malinauskas’s home-building blueprint to be unveiled on Tuesday.

The move will restore, at least in name, the government authority that provided affordable family housing from 1936 until it was effectively sidelined in 2006 by then housing minister Jay Weatherill.

Declaring the Housing Trust “special to me” because his father worked there for more than 35 years, Mr Malinauskas said the restoration sent a clear message that his government was “committed to supporting low-income households and vulnerable South Australians”.

Peter Malinauskas declared the Housing Trust is “special to me” because his father worked there for more than 35 years. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Mr Malinauskas on Tuesday will unveil a Premier’s Housing Roadmap at an industry summit, aimed at easing the housing crisis.

The newly renamed Housing Trust will be charged with accelerating construction of homes, stopping sales and overseeing upgrades of existing stock.

This will include enacting a promise to stop the sale of 580 public homes by mid-2026 and building more than 1000 over a similar period.

But the focus will not return to the Housing Trust’s long-term roles of providing affordable homes for working people, plus driving economic and population growth – opening a potential avenue for criticism.

Instead, the government says the return to the “trusted name” signals a clear shift away from selling public housing, as has occurred for 29 of the past 30 years, and a renewed commitment to the Housing Trust’s “original values and goals”.

The-then premier Thomas Playford in March, 1945 inspected 16 new houses built by the Housing Trust at Eleventh Ave, St Peters. From left – Sir Henry Barwell, a member of the trust, Mr J P Cartledge (chairman), Mr Keith Bentzen (member), Sir William Goodman, the Premier, Mr H H Cowell, architect for the trust, and Sir Lavington Bonython, a member of the trust. (The Advertiser photograph Krischock)

Housing Minister Nick Champion said the government was increasing public housing stock for the first time in a generation, with a revived Housing Trust that represented “stability, reliability and dedication to safe and high-quality public housing”.

“Our state has a proud public housing history and changing the name is a clear direction that the Housing Trust needs to get back to its core duty, delivering more public housing and support for more South Australians,” he said.

“What we’re doing here is we’re bringing back a trusted brand in the Housing Trust of South Australia. There’s a number of us, including myself, who’ve always called it the Trust, and who always struggled with the new name.”

Housing Minister Nick Champion said the government was increasing public housing stock for the first time in a generation. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

The Housing Trust in May, 2006, was among authorities folded into Housing SA, which Mr Weatherill at the time pitched as cutting overheads and bureaucracy to “leave more money for better services”. The subsumed Trust was redesigned as a “high-needs” housing provider.

Created in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Trust was originally required to provide “accommodation necessary for decent living at low rentals”.

A post-war surge in demand for affordable housing, spurred by an ambitious migration program and returned service personnel, resulted in the 10,000th Trust home being completed in 1951.