Housing Affordability

Mortgage stress and precarious home ownership: implications for older Australians

This research investigated the growing numbers of middle aged and older Australians who are carrying mortgage debt into retirement and paying off higher levels of debt relative to house values and income. Between 1987 and 2015, mortgage debt among older mortgagors increased by 600 per cent (from $27,000 to over $185,000).
2019

Older Renters Struggling with Affordability, Insecurity, and Lack of Agency

This paper highlights the results of UK's Generation Rent’s 2019 survey of private renters.
2019

Older renter numbers predicted to climb

The high rate of home ownership in New Zealand is falling, with only around 50% currently owning their own home. This is predicted to decrease further. The article looks at the impact this will have on rental issues faced by an ageing population in particular.
2019

Housing Crisis: Young People Pushing Older Women Into Homelessness

Older women are Australia's fastest growing group of homeless people and the lack of affordable housing is a major factor in the rapid increase. The number of homeless women over 55 has increased by a whopping 31 percent since 2011. Other demographics of homeless people have increased by just 14 percent since then.
2019

The rising population of older, homeless women

Older women are often the forgotten face of homelessness. Stereotypes dominate the average view of what a homeless person looks like, but at a time when the number of older women couch-surfing has doubled in just four years, times are changing. In Australia in 2016, 1618 women over the age of 50 who presented at homelessness services were couch-surfing – an 83 per cent increase over four years.
2018

Where's the Map? Navigating Australia's Housing and Aged Care Systems

Old age is when a lifetime of inequality, compounded and multiplied from life event to life event, can be in its starkest relief. Some inequality comes in later in life, following adverse life events such as divorce or redundancy.
2018

The Future of Housing for the Elderly: Four Strategies that Can Make a Difference

In the US, in the last several years, there has been a broad-based effort to re-frame the discussion about housing for the elderly and reaffirm that housing matters. Housing locations, including the individual homes of older persons, are becoming major long-term care and health delivery sites.
2018

How does homelessness affect senior women?

In 2013, The OECD reported that Canada has a low old-age poverty rate compared to other OECD countries—7.2%—but it is rising while other countries’ are decreasing. Furthermore, seniors in Canada must rely on their own capital, including private pensions, for 42% of their post-retirement income.
2018

Seventy and homeless for the first time: the rise of older women's homelessness

While the stereotypical face of poverty is a older man – a lifetime down on his luck, the fastest growing demographic of people experiencing homelessness is single women over the age of 55. While it is clear that women are victim to lifelong structural settings that have undermined their financial security – the state of the housing market is what is pushing so many women from housing stress into
2018

Social housing as infrastructure: an investment pathway

This research modelled five alternative pathways to funding social housing and found the ‘capital grant’ model, supplemented by efficient financing, provides the most cost effective model for Australia. The research also established the current and future unmet need for social housing in different parts of Australia.
2018
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