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This week the Albanese Labor Government’s  Housing Australia Future Fund passed the Parliament. The passage of legislation means that the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will be established, to create an ongoing pipeline of funding for social and affordable rental housing.

An additional $1 billion will be invested in the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support new homes.

Returns from the Housing Australia Future Fund will help deliver 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the fund’s first five years. This includes 4,000 homes for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence or older women at risk of homelessness.

Fund returns will also deliver the Government’s commitments to help address acute housing needs, including:

• $200 million for the repair, maintenance and improvement of housing in remote Indigenous communities;
• $100 million for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness; and
• $30 million to build housing for veterans who are experiencing homelessness or at‑risk of homelessness.

The package of housing legislation includes the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023, which will establish the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council as an independent statutory advisory body.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023 changes the name of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation to Housing Australia and streamlines its functions.

The Albanese Government’s housing reform agenda also includes:

• A new national target to build 1.2 million well-located homes
• A $3 billion New Homes Bonus, and $500 million Housing Support Program
• A $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia
• A National Housing Accord which includes federal funding to deliver 10,000 affordable homes over five years from 2024 (to be matched by up to another 10,000 by the states and territories)
• An investment of an additional $1 billion in the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support more homes
• Up to $575 million in funding already unlocked from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, with homes under construction across the country
• Increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 15%, the largest increase in more than 30 years
• An additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation
• New incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in Build-to-Rent accommodation
• A $1.7 billion one year extension of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement with states and territories, including a $67.5 million boost to homelessness funding over the next year
• The development of a new National Housing and Homelessness Plan
• States and territories committing to A Better Deal for Renters
• States and territories supporting the national roll out of the Help to Buy program, which will reduce the cost of buying a home
• Helping more than 67,000 people into home ownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme since being elected, and recently expanding program eligibility.

Read the full press release here.

The Mercy Foundation strongly supports a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament. A constitutionally enshrined Voice will contribute to realising the vision and values of the Mercy Foundation, with potential to help restore, protect and uphold the human rights and dignity of our First Nations peoples, who are currently one of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups on our planet.

Support for a Voice to Parliament
The Mercy Foundation proudly supports a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament. The Mercy Foundation is a social justice organisation under the auspices of the Sisters of Mercy North Sydney. The Mercy Foundation’s vision is for a just, equitable and inclusive society, where all have dignity in God’s vision of mercy. The Foundation strives to eliminate poverty and injustice and promotes the human rights and dignity of all people.

A First Nations Voice to Parliament aligns with the key values of the Mercy Foundation:

• Dignity: respecting and recognising the inherent worth of each individual and helping them to achieve their full potential whilst maintaining their self esteem
• Empowerment: supporting people to reach their potential and exercise their rights
• Systemic change: focusing on the structural causes of and solutions to poverty and injustice
• Courage: being prepared to challenge individuals, structures, systems, practices, laws and policies which are unjust.
• Justice: acknowledging everyone has the right to be treated fairly and with dignity and equality.
• Leadership: with respect, integrity and wisdom, setting an example for others to follow

Rationale for supporting the Voice
Help end homelessness for First Nations peoples
Since 2008, the Mercy Foundation has focused on ending homelessness. The Foundation is informed by evidence and research and has developed expertise in ending homelessness. We are greatly troubled by the persistent overrepresentation of First Nations peoples in the homelessness population, being 10 times more likely to be homeless than non-Indigenous people. ¹ Dispossession, racism, poverty and intergenerational trauma are some of the root causes of homelessness, with successive policy responses failing to address key issues or bring about positive change.
The Voice to Parliament offers a means of addressing inequality and injustice. Through deep listening and with First Nations informed legislation and policy, the Voice has potential to restore the right to housing for First Nations peoples and the consequent positive impacts a home brings to all aspects of life.

Subsidiarity
In all our grants programs, the Mercy Foundation prioritises projects developed with the people most affected, based on the social justice principle of subsidiarity. This results in better and long-lasting outcomes. The Voice will ensure that First Nations peoples are listened to in matters that affect them.

Improve health and wellbeing
The Closing the Gap measures highlight the inequality and poor outcomes experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Of the 18 socio-economic targets only four are on track.
Key measures not on track include:

• The life expectancy for males and females is 8.6 years and 7.8 years lower than non-Indigenous males and females.
• Indigenous children starting school are not developmentally on track and are falling behind.
• The number of children in out of home care is increasing.
• The number of First Nations adults held in incarceration is increasing.
• Suicide rates are increasing.
• It is completely unacceptable that Indigenous children aged 10 to 17 years are 24 times more likely to be in detention than other young people.²

It is clearly evident that current processes and policy is failing our First Nations families and individuals.

Restore, uphold and protect human rights
A Voice to Parliament is consistent with international human rights standards. It promotes equality and self-determination for First Nations people. It is right and fair that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the opportunity to participate in decisions which affect them.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, endorsed by Australia in 2009, recognises the right of Indigenous people to participate in decision making and obliges governments to consult with Indigenous people before adopting legislative or administrative measures that may affect them. The Voice to Parliament will help fulfill some of the rights within the Declaration.

Consistency with Catholic Social Teaching and Papal letters
The Voice to Parliament aligns with many of the principles of the Catholic Church’s social teaching as detailed in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace). Additionally, the Voice to Parliament is consistent with Papal teachings contained in the Encyclical Letters Laudato Si’ (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020), various Apostolic Exhortations including Evangelii Gaudium (2013) and Papal statements.³

In the words of Pope John Paul II at Alice Springs in 1986:
The Church in Australia will not be fully the church that Jesus wants her to be until you, the Aboriginal people, have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.

Conclusion
The proposed constitutional amendment will recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of Australia. The amendment will give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities a say over matters that affect them. The Voice to Parliament will assist in the development of better legislation and policies to help end homelessness for First Nations peoples, improve their health and wellbeing and ensure their rights are restored, protected and upheld.

The Mercy Foundation heartily endorse and accept the invitation from the Uluru Statement from the Heart to join with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a movement for a better future for all of us.

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¹ Tually, S., Tedmanson, D., Habibis, D., McKinley, K., Akbar, S., Chong, A., Deuter, K. and Goodwin-Smith, I. (2022) Urban Indigenous homelessness: much more than housing, AHURI Final Report No. 383, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited, Melbourne, https://www. ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/383, doi: 10.18408/ ahuri3222701

² Nationally in 2021-22, the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people aged 10-17 years in detention on an average day was 28.3 per 10 000 young people in the population. The rate of Non-Indigenous young people in detention was 1.2 per 10 000 https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard/socioeconomic/outcome-area11

³ Refer to Applying Catholic Social teaching to the Voice Referendum and Reconciliation: Insights from Fr Frank Brennan SJ 11 July 2023 for further details.

In April 2023, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery called for submissions on the issue of homelessness as a cause and consequence of contemporary form of slavery. The Mercy Foundation was one of many civil society organisations to provide input into the report.

The Special Rapporteur’s report was released in July and can be read here.

The report concludes that homelessness can significantly increase the risk of contemporary forms of slavery, placing persons experiencing homelessness at risk of recruitment and exploitation. Additionally, homelessness can be a consequence of contemporary forms of slavery, as survivors of modern slavery face many barriers in securing affordable, appropriate accommodation.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including

• Enhance the understanding of the linkage between homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery, particularly among relevant public service and law enforcement agencies, ensuring data on the linkage is collected and updated;
• properly identify trafficked and exploited persons experiencing homelessness as victims of contemporary slavery and extend protection without discrimination;
• develop a rights-based approach to preventing and eliminating homelessness, including its causes and consequences;
• regularly evaluate laws and policies on homelessness to test their appropriateness and effectiveness with regard to contemporary forms of slavery;
• prevent and prohibit evictions leading to homelessness
• establish support programs to ensure access to housing for persons leaving out of home care, hospitals, military service or prisons;
• ensure swift access to long term affordable, safe and secure housing to persons experiencing homelessness;
• provide equal access to essential services , including health care and social assistance, as well as access to justice and remedies for all persons experiencing homelessness, without discrimination;

Among the recommendations for civil society organisations, the Special Rapporteur recommends

• enhance the understanding of the linkage between homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery through awareness raising, training, and conduct research and collect data on the linkage regularly,
• the development of a clear and coherent synergy between strategies and measures to eliminate homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery,
• regularly evaluate and report on the State’s efforts to prevent and eliminate homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery.

Congratulations to Mahboba Rawi OAM, who was awarded the Cath Leary Social Justice Award for 2023.

Mahboba Rawi is the founder of Mahboba’s Promise, a charity established in 2001 to improve the lives of vulnerable women and children in Afghanistan and Australia. In 2010, Mahboba was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for service to international humanitarian aid. Read more about Mahboba’s work here.

Last week, Housing for the Aged Action Group (HAAG) released a report Ageing in a housing crisis: Older people’s housing insecurity and homelessness in Australia that reveals the increasing housing insecurity being experienced by older people across the housing system.

In summary:

• The proportion of older people that own their home outright is declining, while the proportion of older people living with a mortgage is increasing.
• There are growing numbers of older people living in private rental.
• Housing affordability in the private rental market is a struggle, with people on the lowest incomes hardest hit.
• Decreasing numbers of older people live in social housing.
• More older people live in marginal housing than they did 5 or 10 years ago. Marginal housing is housing that is overcrowded or in caravan parks.
• The number of older people experiencing homelessness increased by 4,500 over ten years.
• Older men are more likely to be living in boarding houses, compared to older women who are more likely to be living in overcrowded dwellings or staying temporarily with another household.

Recommendations:

Some of the recommendations are:

1. Build more public and community housing for people over 55 years who cannot afford rent in the private rental market.
2. Strengthen rental laws to enable longer leases and minimum accessibility standards.
3. Fund specialist housing support services for older people.
4. Financial institutions should work with older mortgage holders to avert financial stress and hardship.

More information and recommendations can be accessed here.

Everybody should read this report: Waithood – the experiences of applying for and waiting for social housing 

Across Australia, there are around 175,000 households on the social housing wait list. This report portrays what applying and waiting for social housing is really like for individuals and their families.

The report discusses why people apply for social housing, the challenge of providing the documentation necessary to support a social housing application and the uncertainty of not knowing when housing may become available. It details the precarious living circumstances while waiting for housing, the toll waiting takes on health and wellbeing of both adults and children, the coping strategies people take and their views about the future.

It reminds us that the impacts of homelessness are deeply personal and traumatising. The intense instability created by homelessness impacts heavily on children, creating anxiety, poor sleep and a feeling of being chronically unsettled:

The impacts of waiting are profound. Waitees told of their financial struggles, not being able to feed themselves or their children adequately and cutting back on medication or forgoing necessary medical procedures. Waitees with disability or who were looking after a family member with disability were particularly hard hit by waiting. Many waitees felt that not having an affordable and stable home combined with the endless waiting were fundamental contributors to their poor physical and mental health. Anxiety and depression appeared to be common. Sadly, the children of waitees were often hard-hit by their situation with some having to live away from their parents or in temporary accommodation and having to constantly move. 

(page 60)

Our country urgently needs to build more social housing as quickly as possible.

Homelessness should be rare, brief and non-recurring. This week is Homelessness Week and we are joining together to say it’s time to end homelessness. 

Homelessness NSW released a report on Monday, called Rare, Brief and Non-Recurring: A System Wide Approach to Ending Homelessness Together. The report highlights the multiple issues and systems that create homelessness. This includes issues such as housing affordability, lack of supply, family and domestic violence, structural issues such as poverty, unemployment, racism, social inequality, justice, health and more.

Solving homelessness isn’t just about more housing, although that is definitely needed. It requires collaboration between multiple stakeholders including all levels of government, government agencies,  experts with lived experience, NGO’s, the private sector and community members.

The personal cost of homelessness is devastating for individuals and families. Housing is a human right and all of us are responsible for ensuring everyone in our community has a safe place to call home.

A group of passionate women on the Central Coast came together to address the concerning impacts the housing crisis is having on older women in their community, who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness. The group called themselves AHOW (Action on Housing for Older Women). After consulting with women directly impacted by homelessness, share housing was identified as a possible solution.  The group applied for a Grant to End Homelessness to create a model that would make share housing a safe and viable option for women in their community.

After much consultation with real estate agents, social and affordable housing providers and other community groups and organisations, the team developed a model for share housing and a Resource Kit.

The Resource Kit provides information and guides to assist individuals and organisations to develop successful share house arrangements for women over 55 in the private rental sector. The Resource Kit provides information about:

• what is a residential tenancy?
• what is a share house agreement?
• establishing ground rules for share living
• rent assistance and share living
• pros and cons of tenancy options
• support services

The Resource Kit offers the means to develop a Share House Agreement in conjunction with a Residential Tenancy Agreement.

The project team found that while not all women are suited to this model, it does provide a solution for some. The model and resource kit makes this project a replicable model for other communities across Australia.

The SHOW Resource Kit can be downloaded here

Download the SHOW Project Report

 

A review of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) was released on 25 May. This comprehensive report covered three key questions:

• Can a Modern Slavery Act be effective in combatting modern slavery?
• Could the Act be more effective if changes were made to ow it is framed and administered?
• Is the law being taken seriously?

The review put forward 30 recommendations, including: