This is an Australian research paper of Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited Melbourne, Australia (AHURI) is a national independent research network with an expert not-for-profit research management company, AHURI Limited, at its centre. AHURI has a public good mission to deliver high quality research that influences policy development to improve the housing and urban environments of all Australians.

Strong and stable intergovernmental and stakeholder commitment underpins successful public housing sectors, in complex federated governance settings. Prescriptive centrally driven requirements, such as very narrow income targeting of tenancy allocations, negatively impacts revenue, concentrate disadvantage, and increase demand for support services, as in the US. Vibrant and growing multi-provider systems are present in countries where business models are well defined, broadly allocated, publicly supported, and well-regulated with conditional subsidies contestable, as in Austria. Devolution of responsibilities without the adequate transfer of resources often deteriorates and reduces public social housing stock in the long term, as in Canada and Germany.

Insufficient funds to resource capital and operating expenses forces social housing providers to rely more heavily on entrepreneurial activities and shorter-term private finance, often increasing rents and asset sales, as in Germany. Privatization of public housing can impede the enforcement of social rental contracts, also as in Germany. Devolution can support local innovation and responsiveness, as in Austria but also lead to fragmentation undermining comprehensive national policy, as in Canada and Germany. New sources of private funding can significantly supplement declining supply subsidy programs, as in the US and Austria, but can also increase costs for tenants and increase demand for rent assistance. Private investment, while accessible to the affordable not-for-profit sector, has not addressed the shortfall in funding for deeply social public housing, as in the US.