Research

Beyond the Housing Crisis – A Home for All

The University of South Australia (UniSA) and Believe Housing Australia have released a research report that highlights the desperate need for new collaborative vision, strategy and action to deal with South Australia’s housing crisis, which leaves thousands of people without a home each night.

The report, Beyond the Housing Crisis – A Home for All, authored by UniSA’s Dr Helen Dinmore and Dr Debbie Faulkner, notes that past government policies and a housing market gone rampant are two key causes of the current crisis that sees more than 6,000 people experiencing homelessness each night in SA, and more than 30,000 people on the State’s social housing waiting list.

Research report: 5 key take-aways

• SA, like the rest of the country, is in the grip of a housing crisis. Our current system can’t cope. We need an urgent, national coordinated response to address the root causes.
• Rental availability and affordability are at an all-time low across the country. Availability is at its worst in Adelaide, where vacancy rates hit 0.2% in March 2022.
• Responses to the crisis must provide tailored solutions to high-risk cohorts with specific needs, including youth, First Nations people, people living with mental health issues and disability, older people and those escaping domestic violence.
• Investment in housing for all delivers community-wide social and economic benefits. When people are securely housed, savings through increased social participation and reduced service use far outweigh the cost of investment.
• There is community appetite for change. Survey data shows South Australians feel impacted by the housing crisis and don’t think the government is doing enough.

Get involved

Never before has our housing system come under greater scrutiny than right now. There is mounting community pressure to fix the housing market and support for positive change. There are also compelling reasons and opportunities to address this complex issue.

Register your interest for our upcoming roundtable series

Believe Housing Australia will host a series of solution-focused roundtables during 2022/23 for representatives from all levels of government, NFPs and the private sector. The objective of this collaborative approach is to develop, compare, contrast, and recommend strategies and actions that will ultimately deliver an efficient multi-provider housing system for the SA community.

Roundtables will focus on:

• Youth
• Over 55s
• First Nations people
• People with mental health issues and disability

Roundtable objectives:

• Consolidate and increase awareness and understanding of issues across sectors
• Consider successful scalable models and pilots nationally and internationally and analyse similarities with SA and barriers to implementation
• Share data and identify gaps in the evidence base, to develop a collaborative, state-based approach to further research
• Table policy, structures, partnerships and funding mechanisms, including available Commonwealth funds
• Recommend strategies and actions that can deliver an efficient multi-provider housing system for the SA community