ON WHOSE ACCOUNT? GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON HOUSING - The Centre for Equitable Housing at Per Capita

It looks at the history of government housing programs and asks whether the tens of billions of dollars the public gives to support the housing needs and choices of Australians is money well spent in the pursuit of a fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable society. [...] The federal Ministry of Housing now sits within the Department of Social Security, illustrating the shift that has occurred over the last 50 years to see government’s role in the housing market as being simply the provider of a welfare-based safety net for those the market does not wish to serve. [...] This was largely due to the Hawke Government’s anti-poverty initiative, including the extension of CRA eligibility to recipients of the Family Allowance Supplement, removing the waiting period for families with children, the abolition of separate incomes and savings tests, and the twice-yearly indexing of CRA to the CPI.8 Figure 7 Federal Expenditures on Rent Assistance and Social Housing/Homeless. [...] The lack of ambition in federal housing policy is both a cause and an effect of the absence of clearly articulated policy objectives for the housing functions of the budget, and of the absence of rigorous 13 appropriations/portfolio-budget- statements#:~:text=The%20PB%20Statements%20con. [...] The decline in funding that is negotiated between the Federal Government and the states and territories speaks to the retreat of the Federal Government as a strategic market shaper.