A series of recommendations have been delivered as part of a review of social and affordable housing rent models.
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They include maintaining the contribution made by social housing tenants at 25 per cent of their income, and creating stronger incentives for tenants who can to find work and/or private housing.
The state government asked the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal to undertake an independent review of social and affordable housing rent models.
IPART provided their final report and recommendations (publicly released this week) to the Minister for Social Housing in July.
IPART chair Dr Peter Boxall recently told the Mercury there were just over 11,000 households in the Illawarra in social housing, with a waitlist of nearly 4000.
The final report contains 29 recommendations regarding social and affordable housing in NSW.
IPART’s review found that an income-based rent contribution is the best option to keep rents affordable for tenants.
“We also found that the 25 per cent of assessable household income currently applicable to most social housing tenants in NSW is appropriate, and there is little scope to increase this percentage without making rent unaffordable,” the report said.
Recommendations include that a limited ‘right of return’ arrangement be introduced to encourage people to take up employment opportunities (and private rental opportunities) without fear of a loss of housing security if their circumstances change again.
Other recommendations included that all social housing tenancy agreements be reviewed periodically (at least every three years) to assess whether the dwelling continues to be suitable for the tenant’s needs.
The NSW Government has also responded to the final report/recommendations.
“The NSW Government supports IPART’s recommendation for the development of a Social Housing Strategy which would provide clarity and certainty to the sector, and encompass the various support services needed to ensure the system can flexibly respond to client needs to improve the lives of tenants,” the response said.
“The government will further consider the IPART recommendations as part of its ongoing social housing strategy development.”
Dr Boxall told the Mercury earlier this year that “there is an issue in the Illawarra, clearly, of unmet demand”.
“Our report and our recommendations go to, amongst other things, putting the social housing on a more sustainable basis,” he said.
“That would definitely benefit the Illawarra.”
Read the final report here.
