Advisory Center for Affordable Settlements & Housing

acash

Advisory Center for Affordable Settlements and Housing
ACASH

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Australia: Models of Sustainable and Affordable Housing

The gravity of Australia’s housing affordability problem has led to its recent acknowledgement as a matter for urgent federal attention. The newly appointed Housing Minister of the incoming Labor Government has noted that housing affordability, defined as a ratio of income to housing costs, is currently at an all time low (Plibersek 2008). Figures cited by the Minister for the last quarter of 2007 show that the average home, costing four times the average wage in 1996, now costs seven times the average wage. By international comparison, Australia’s housing affordability is ranked one of the lowest in the world. The 2006 Census demonstrated an increasing picture of housing stress for Parramatta households. This report summarizes recent research undertaken by the Urban Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, in collaboration with Parramatta Council, to investigate the provision of sustainable and affordable housing in Parramatta. Existing affordable housing projects were explored through interviews with key personnel and publicly available documents such as business plans, financial records and annual reports. A considerable body of such information was gathered and assembled by Milligan et al (2004) and provided an invaluable empirical starting point for this project. The project initially aimed to comprehensively update the work of Milligan et al; however, this was not done as this task was being undertaken by AHURI. Milligan et al (2004) created a typology of programs which was used for this project and helped narrow the foci of investigation to particular program types. This led to the identification of three case studies most relevant to the needs of Parramatta City.

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