Housing Affordability

Amplify Insights: Housing Affordability and Homelessness

This report assembles the evidence, from official statistics, academic research, and other publicly available information about the lived experience of homelessness and housing affordability in Australia.

Kristy Muir, Chris Martin, Edgar Liu, Lisette Kaleveld, Paul Flatau, Lena Etuk, Hal Pawson

2018

Themes:

Housing Affordability, Older Men, Older Women, Policy

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.

Michelle Wisbey

2018

Themes:

Housing Affordability, Older Women, Single people & housing stress, Policy

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.

Victoria Cornell, Alice Clarke, Jane Mussared

2018

Themes:

Ageing Population, Housing Affordability, Health, Policy

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.

Jon Pynoos

2018

Themes:

Age Specific Housing, Ageing-in-Place, Housing Affordability, Social Housing, Co-housing

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.

Emma Woolley

2018

Themes:

Older Women, Housing Affordability, Policy

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

Sharna de Lacy

2018

Themes:

Older Women, Private Rental, Policy, Housing Affordability, Single people & housing stress

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.

Julie Lawson, Hal Pawson, Laurence Troy

2018

Themes:

Housing Affordability

Grey renting: the rising tide of older private tenants

New statistics from the most recent edition of the UK government’s English Housing Survey suggest a big tide of older private tenants is fast approaching. If it’s realised, this shift in the way older people are housed could see increasing numbers of pensioners paying unaffordable levels of rent, forced to move against their will or made homeless.

John Bibby

2018

Themes:

Ageing Population, Private Rental, Housing Affordability