Public Housing Guide

Australia

In Australia, public housing represents approximately 5% of the market^{[citation
needed]}, and private rental about 25%^{[citation
needed]}, though these proportions vary between states and territories. Public housing has traditionally been provided by departments of the various state and territory governments. These departments have been known by a variety of names due to their history in each state, such as the Housing Commission (Victoria), the Department of Housing (New South Wales) or Housing SA (formerly known as the Housing Trust) (South Australia), and known colloquially in some parts of the country as the 'houso' or 'the commission'. Their official name tends to change with the way each state government prioritises public housing within its departmental structure. For example, for a time in the 1980s, Victoria's public housing had its own department (Department of Planning and Housing). Since the early 1990s, departmental restructuring under the Kennett government relegated its status to the 'Office of Housing' within the Department of Planning and Development. It has since been moved from a 'bricks and mortar' issue to one of health and welfare, now being an office within the Department of Human Services. The management of some public housing has been outsourced to not-for-profit management companies as part of a demand management philosophy to target it towards people with special needs.

Australian public housing has traditionally been of two main types. Inner-city medium to high-rise and low-density detached bungalows on master-planned estates located on what were at the time, the suburban fringes of cities and towns. The inner-city public housing is found in Melbourne and Sydney on estates generally comprising 3-5 storey walk-up flats and 11-22 storey high-rise towers. Since the late 1990s, the Victorian government has embarked on a process of redeveloping its inner-city estates with a mix of public and private housing. Some of the low-density suburban housing has been sold-off over the years to long term tenants, and some has begun to circulate on the private property market at high prices in gentrified suburbs such as Port Melbourne.

Most public housing in Australia was built between 1945 and 1980, with governments in recent decades less willing to build and provide for new public housing estates. The majority of Australia's public housing programs were originally initiated to house returned soldiers and their new families after World War II; a period of chronic housing shortages across the country. However the construction of high-rise estates in Melbourne and Sydney during the 1950s and 1960s was aimed more at improving the living conditions of inner-suburban residents living in sub-standard housing.

During the late 1970s, as local community resistance grew to inner suburban high-rise estates, public housing programs were severely curtailed. In addition to the reaction to large high-rises in the inner city was the social stigmatization following the creation of sizeable enclaves of a single, negatively perceived socio-economic group. From the 1980s onwards, the focus was on small-scale infill projects and 'spot-purchase' of existing dwellings in appropriate locations.

Today public housing in Australia is generally seen by governments as welfare accommodation for low income earners, social security recipients and people with support needs such as the Old age. Though public housing remains stigmatized in Australia, mainly due its status as a minority tenure, there is little hard evidence to support the stereotypes that public housing estates are any less safe than other neighborhoods.

Some areas of Australian cities known for a high concentration of public housing include: