The community as a whole enjoys benefits from people having affordable and secure housing. These benefits are at both a societal and individual level and include improving educational outcomes, stabilizing employment, greater participation in neighbourhoods and communities, and greater economic growth for families and their neighbourhoods. As outlined in the National Housing Summit’s 2007 paper A Call for Action, three-quarters of a million lower-income households in Australia are paying housing costs, (either mortgages or rent) above 30% of their income. Many of these households live in housing that is inadequate for their needs because alternatives are unaffordable. There is no shortage of ideas for providing affordable housing for lower-income households, but little is being built throughout Australia. This Churchill report looks at a number of innovative affordable housing projects in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and the policy frameworks enabling them to be built. Housing affordability is currently at the forefront of the federal and state political agendas. While much of the political focus is on the affordability of home ownership, the reality is that increasingly people are turning to the public and private rental markets to find places to live. Successful affordable housing projects need the ‘trifecta’ of favorable and innovative funding arrangements, supportive planning policy and good design.