Reports

Retirement Housing In Victoria Communique

"On 8 June 2017, 24 representatives from resident advocacy groups, universities, industry, ombudsman schemes, government agencies and regulators met in Melbourne at an Experts’ Forum to discuss the future of retirement housing regulation in Victoria. We were also joined by academics and advocates from interstate jurisdictions.

The Experts’ Forum followed the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the retirement housing sector, which released its final report on 7 March 2017. The Inquiry received 766 submissions and heard from 90 witnesses. The vast majority of evidence was received from residents.

The message to the Inquiry was clear: residents expect change. While many residents generally enjoy life in their choice of retirement housing, many are also frustrated by a system they see as geared in favour of operators. Some feel that instead of prioritising residents, operators are more concerned about satisfying shareholders.

Residents gave evidence to the Inquiry about what they see as unjustifiable exit fees, complex contracts and poor dispute resolution."

See the full report here

Access to Justice Review

The Government has recently responded to the 2016 Access to Justice Review, prepared by the Department of Justice and Regulation.

HAAG made a submission to this review, which included six background papers and related terms of reference. HAAG's submission can be found here.

The Government has accepted or accepted in-part 57 of the recommendations with some being referred to the courts, and the remaining three recommendations are under further consideration.

A copy of the Government response is available at: https://engage.vic.gov.au/accesstojustice

And an overview of the Access to Justice review is available below:

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Rental Affordability Index- Aged Focused May 2017

"Across the nation, the single pensioner household is facing Severely Unaffordable and Extremely unaffordable rents. For the most part, locating in metropolitan areas (which is where one bedroom dwellings are generally available) would require 60 per cent or more of the pensioner’s income to be spent on rent.

Housing pressures on this household type would also be compounded by a number of other pressures, including health care costs associated with aging". 

May Rental Affordability Index Report 2017

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At Risk of Homelessness: Preventing Homelessness in Older CALD Communities

Preventing Homelessness in Older Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities is a collaboration between Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria (ECCV) and HAAG. The project was designed to reach out to key communities and provide housing options and information in their first language.' At Risk of Homelessness' is the report from this project.

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'A Home for Diversity' Project Report

A Home for diversity is a 6 month project that aimed to increase the capacity of homelessness services to work with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The project provided training to housing workers, particularly those who work with older people. This training was provided by the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health, in collaboration with Housing for the Aged Action Group.

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The Australian Rental Report 2017

The first survey of Australian renters has been carried out and the results tell a pretty grim story for the growing number of renters out there. You've heard HAAG harp about this for years, now finally it's backed up by an independant study, one that has been getting a lot of attention.

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Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey 2017

International report by Demographia rating Middle-income housing affordability

Data for 3rd Quarter 2016

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A Home for Life: Towards an Older Persons Housing Strategy

November 2016

A report by a coalition of nine leading community agencies, “A Home for Life: Towards an Older Person’s Housing strategy” calls on government to partner with community organisations and adopt recommendations to address the long term housing needs for older people.
 

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At the crossroads in retirement: Older people at risk of homelessness

July 2016

Report prepared by Jeff Fiedler and Fiona York

This report is an analysis of the first two years of the Home at Last service and the thousands of older people who have sought help because they are at risk of homelessness.

The data shows that a large number of older people in Victoria are struggling to cope with their day to day living and are constantly on the edge of homelessness.

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Independent Voices: Collecting and recording the experiences of residents of Independent Living Units in Victoria

July 2016

Prepared by Aoife Cooke, HAAG Project Worker

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