NSW housing crisis: state govt must direct $1bn a year into affordable housing

The state government needs to urgently direct at least $1bn a year into affordable housing or it will lose a generation of young people to dysfunction and crime, a landmark report has found.

The multigenerational Jones family Georgie with dad Will, grandparents Margaret and David, Rafferty, Chester and Will’s sister Clea all in their shared home. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The state government needs to urgently direct at least $1bn a year into affordable housing or it will lose a generation of young people to dysfunction and crime, a landmark report has found.

An unprecedented joint budget submission by the McKell Institute and the Society of St Vincent de Paul has warned that the demand for social housing will quadruple in just over a decade and a half and if something isn’t done parts of NSW could resemble a wasteland.

McKell Institute CEO Edward Cavanough said anything less than $5bn over five years “will be like trying to stick bandaids on a gushing wound”.

“If something urgent is not done now, New South Wales will look like a very different society in a decade’s time,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“We will be seeing widespread, entrenched, generational disadvantage. Kids that could have been economically productive will end up trapped in the justice system.

“Communities that could have been safe and prosperous will become dangerous and miserable. This is the trajectory we are on without urgent intervention.”

McKell Institute CEO Edward Cavanough.

There are currently more than 57,600 households — 125,000 people — awaiting social housing in NSW, with that number projected to reach as high as 221,500 households by 2041.

This means that not only are these low-income residents not receiving affordable housing but they are also stuck in the private rental market, reducing access and increasing prices for all would-be renters.

The report found over 35 per cent of NSW renters face housing stress, with poverty rates doubling from 10 per cent to almost 20 per cent in just five years.

The $5bn over five years would go to $2.5bn directly for new stock, $1bn for maintenance, $1bn on concessional loans facility for community housing providers, $250m for new investments in Aboriginal housing and $250m for further wrap around services support.

This “surge” funding could help deliver 5000 new homes a year over 10 years, which would slash the waiting list by 75 per cent and alleviate stress for over 33,000 households, while delivering wholesale relief to the rental market.

Veteran Vinnies caseworker Anna Scott said the lack of social housing was particularly acute in regional NSW, already in the grip of a crime wave, which made them even more unsafe.

“There are extremely limited amounts of public housing in regional towns,” she told the Telegraph.

“We had a woman escaping domestic violence placed in accommodation only to find her former partner had been placed five doors down.”

Even in the leafier suburbs of Sydney families are resorting to desperate measures just to get on the bottom rung of the housing market.

Tthe Jones family in Warriewood. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

One extended family has had to pool all its resources, with an adult brother and sister, each with their own families, purchasing a house in Warriewood along with their parents who will also live at the property.

William Jones, his wife and their daughter live in a flat at the back of the house, while his sister Clea, her husband and their two sons share the main house with their parents Margaret and David.

Clea said it was the only way they could afford a home near their kids’ schools.

“If I were living on my own with my two children, I would feel a lot more financial pressure, especially with a mortgage to try and manage on my own,” she said.

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