The Federal Government’s $10b Housing Australia Future Fund is earmarked for affordable housing and it is vital that South Australia ring-fences a significant portion when it’s released.

For some time, housing has been characterised by rising demand, static funding, and failing services. The housing market has failed and South Australia’s housing sector is in crisis. The economic reality is such that protecting basic services is difficult enough, and years of an inadequate programmatic response has made housing into a new emergency service only able to respond to the most serious of cases.

This is not a good time to be renting in South Australia. Low vacancy rates and rising rents affect everyone, and many South Australians find themselves experiencing housing stress and even homelessness for the first time. In fact, most people feel personally affected by the current crisis. The latest rental affordability snapshot showed that as of March 2023, the rental vacancy rate was 0.5% in metropolitan Adelaide and even lower in parts of regional South Australia.

Median rents continue to rise sharply year on year. According to Domain’s quarterly rental report for March 2023, the median price for a rental house in Adelaide is now $520 and, for a unit, $420. This represents a total increase of 21% since December 2020.

The situation is particularly dire for those on the lowest incomes. A shortage of social and affordable housing means they are competing in the same private rental market as people on higher incomes, and don’t stand much of a chance of finding a secure, affordable rental that meets their needs. Even if they do secure a rental, it can mean making difficult financial decisions about other essential needs, often going without food, heating or other basics to meet rising rents.

The housing market has failed and South Australia’s housing sector is in crisis

The HAFF will be a much-needed and overdue injection of funds to enable community housing providers and others to boost the housing supply and alleviate the huge and ever-increasing demand for social and affordable homes.

We, like other community housing providers, have shovel-ready projects that are ready for activation. Housing organisations are demonstrating innovative and radical ways of responding to need, creating value and patching the cracks in the walls of a critical sector. But it’ll take significant reform and sustained investment to end the crisis.

Our policies must tackle the housing crisis head on with bolder, better funded and better designed measures. Raising JobSeeker and related payments will give people on the lowest incomes a real chance to break cycles of debt, housing insecurity and ongoing welfare dependence. Better targeted negative gearing and capital gains tax exemptions would provide funding for homes for people on low incomes.

With a shared belief that housing is a basic need and right for everyone, and benefits us all, we have a real opportunity to reset the discussion, and reset South Australia’s housing system with reform and investment, to give everyone a fair go at accessing safe, secure housing.

Stacey Northover is general manager of Believe Housing Australia, a community housing provider