How can we solve the housing crisis?

Rent control

Dr Dorina Pojani
Associate Professor of urban planning
School of Architecture, Design and Planning
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology

The Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 received assent on 6 June 2024. The Amendment Act makes some changes to Queensland’s rental laws, presumed to strengthen renters’ rights and stabilise rents. The main change is the application of a 12-month limit on rent increases to the rental property instead of the tenancy. Other reforms, to be implemented in stages, include increased protections of renters’ privacy and data, caps on rental bonds, and giving renters a fee-free option to pay rent. A one-time Renters Relief Package ($160 million) has also been made available to help impoverished renters.

While any help is welcome, these changes merely tinker at the edges of the rental housing crisis. The amounts of allowable rent increases remain unregulated, and tenants can be evicted at will once a lease is over. 

It’s important to stress that the crisis is caused by shortages in the housing supply and building new public and/or private dwellings will take years – given high costs, planning restrictions, and NIMBYism. A much more immediate solution would be rent control, accompanied by protection from ‘no fault’ evictions. This would involve limiting allowable rent increases to reasonable levels tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). In effect, rent control would mandate a return to historical rent increase patterns, in which rents increase at a similar rate to the CPI for all items. If rent controls applied, evictions could only be allowed for just cause. 

Rent control (or stabilisation) would provide some relief to sitting tenants, which comprise nearly one-third of Australian households, without burdening the public largesse. All that is needed is political will. 

While rent control has been stigmatised as a market distortion, it is in effect in parts of the United States, such as New York and major Californian cities, despite the country being considered the homeland of the free market. Rent controls are also widespread in Europe and Canada. Plenty of successful examples are available, from which Brisbane and other large Australian cities can draw inspiration and lessons.

Social and 'affordable' housing

Professor Tim Reddel
Professor (Social Solutions)
Institute for Social Science Research
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

 Dr Laurel Johnson
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Social Science Research
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Queensland, along with other Australian governments over the last 30 years, has progressively disinvested in social housing and affordable housing – that is government-subsidised short- and long-term rental housing for people experiencing disadvantage, including those on very low incomes and who have often experienced homelessness, family violence or have other complex needs. 

At a broader policy level, housing is increasingly seen as a financial commodity to be speculated. Not simply a means for people to live, housing is a vehicle through which to become wealthy for many, but certainly not all, citizens. The Australian `home ownership dream’ – along with safe, quality, affordable and secure private rental tenancies – are fast becoming unattainable aspirations.

Ballooning waitlists for social housing in Queensland show there is insufficient supply to meet growing demand. According to the 2021 Census, social housing is less than 4% of the entire housing market in Queensland, and there has been a steady decline in the national social-housing profile since the early 1990s, when it constituted just over 6%. The scale of currently unmet need for social housing in Queensland dwarfs the number of households officially recognised on the state’s social-housing waiting lists.

Following a period of sustained inaction, the past 2 years have seen new commitments from both the Queensland and Australian governments to boost social and affordable housing supply by expanding the new Queensland Housing Investment Fund and implementing the Commonwealth’s Housing Australia Future Fund by building another 6,365 social housing dwellings in Queensland by 2025.

Increased supply of social housing is critical but more needs to be done.

As the Queensland election approaches, there are some tentative signals from the Labour government and the Opposition that social housing reform will be on their respective policy agendas, but implementation details are sparse.

We suggest 5 action areas: 

1. Quality and accessible social housing that is co-designed with tenants and mixed throughout local communities, rather than located at their edges.
2. Social housing seen as part of a housing ecosystem by the Queensland Government working with the Federal Government, community and private-housing sectors to respond to key challenges – including climate change, the trend to smaller household sizes, growing social inequity and rising homelessness.
3. A more integrated person-centred service system aligned with improved social housing provision, particularly for people with complex needs.
4. Better integration of the land use planning system with housing planning and delivery.
5. Empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled housing organisations to enable self-determination through community leadership and shared decision-making with governments.

Urban planning and design

Stephanie Wyeth
MPIA Fellow, Professional Planner in Residence and Senior Lecturer
School of Architecture, Design and Planning
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology

Queensland’s housing crisis is not a surprise for urban researchers and policy makers. It has been well known that there has been an underinvestment in affordable and social (public) housing for at least 2 decades.

Now this underinvestment is catching up with governments, how will they respond in a short timeframe to repair the immediate problems while investing longer term to provide a sustainable solution?

The time is right to focus on the solutions that the opposing sides are offering and how urban planning and design can support these agendas.

Although urban planning is limited in providing a ‘quick fix’, it is a vital tool to help governments build cities and towns where everyone can have a roof over their heads.

The housing system is dynamic and complicated. Statutory planning and obtaining development approvals can be time consuming and resource intensive. Policy change is difficult. Building new homes can require disrupting the local communities as well as the natural environment.

For those seeking to tackle the crisis this election there are seven key points to consider:

1. Play the long game. The housing crisis will require sustained action over the medium to long term to address shortfalls and keep up with population growth and demographic change.  There will be a national shortfall of 106,300 dwellings in the 5 years to 2027.
2. Don’t forget the regions. Plans for affordable housing need to be uniformly applied across the state. 
3. It’s hot and getting hotter. We need data-informed scenario planning to deal with the impacts of climate change. Severe weather events and sea level rises will impact where and how we build as well as increase insurance premiums beyond just the far north.
4. Adopt inclusionary planning. Mandatory inclusionary zoning is a tried and tested tool for delivering affordable housing in all levels of government in Europe and the US.
5. Rethink how we design, plan and regulate. Partnering with industry to design homes for smaller households, use less energy and materials, and reflect modern life.
6. Maintain the urban footprint. Don’t make the mistake of extending the urban footprint – as some have called the ‘carpet of suburbia’ – at the expense of protecting the state’s green spaces, waterways, good-quality agricultural land and natural resources.
7. Listen to communities. Identify pain points with local planning and development projects and advocate for designs which deliver resilient, affordable and well-designed housing for all cultures and demographics.

Homelessness

Professor Cameron Parsell
ARC Mid-Career Industry Fellow
School of Social Science
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Citizens going about their lives in the public realm are confronted with the jarring reality of homelessness. The tents and overt signs of rough sleeping observable in and around inner-city Brisbane are now also apparent in Brisbane’s outer suburbs, and in towns and regional centres across Queensland.

This housing injustice, along with the increasing documentation through the media, is supported by available government data that shows demands for homelessness accommodation in Queensland is increasing.

As the Queensland election approaches, I’m often asked how can Queensland, and ultimately whoever governs the state after the election, address the homeless crisis? My response is fourfold.

First, as a society we need to commit to ending homelessness. Our responses to homelessness have typically been characterised by a poverty of ambition. A formal commitment to end homelessness, backed up with a detailed strategy, is the first step.

Second, and of crucial significance, ending homelessness in Queensland (and elsewhere in Australia) requires demonstrably increasing the supply of social and affordable housing. Homelessness is a problem of too few affordable housing dwellings. To be fair, the current Queensland Government has set out an ambitious plan to increase supply at a rate not seen before. The task now is to ensure this plan is realised. Building social and affordable housing, at scale and at the planned pace, is anything but simple.

Third, the government plan to increase supply is excellent, but it will not happen without wide and sustained public support. Ending homelessness requires not only supporting the notion of everyone needs a home, but also supporting and, ideally, advocating for more affordable housing in our neighbourhoods and communities.

Fourth, the commitment to end homelessness, the increased supply of social and affordable housing at the population level, and the active support for more of this housing where will live will be greatly enhanced when we as individual citizens actively see ending homelessness as a unifying endeavour.

The deprivation that homelessness represents harms human life through, for example, exposing people to dangerous situations and accelerating death. It harms us all, even those of us securely housed, by splintering society along the lines of those with and those without.

Ending homelessness, and our roles to contribute to this vision, represent a movement to ensure that all people live with dignity and that together we solidify social cohesion.