Posted:
February 2011
The recently proposed cuts to the NRAS program from 50,000 to 35,000 grants in the seeming blink of an eye serves as an important lesson for the community housing sector.
Were it not for the quick action and advocacy of the Community Housing Federation of Australia (CHFA), the willingness of the Government to review the decision, and some high profile media articles that condemned a policy decision that would have removed $264 million from the NRAS program, community housing as an ongoing solution to the housing affordability crisis may have been dead in the water.
“Despite the demonstrated tangible benefits to housing supply and the stimulatory ripple-effect of the building and construction activity that comes out of the sector, the announcement clearly showed that community housing needs to be active in pursuing other avenues of investment to grow affordable housing in Victoria,” says Jacqui Watt, CHFV’s CEO.
CHFV is of the belief that the State’s housing affordability crisis can only be solved through a bigger picture solution that includes providing incentives for private investment to become significantly involved in the sector.
"The community housing sector provides tremendous leverage to create new homes for the public funds invested, which includes the use of public housing stock transfers as collateral for the borrowing of additional funds to feed supply," she says. "This policy announcement is a wake-up call to the sector, and 2011 must be the year that community housing starts to build strong ties with the private sector investment community."