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Why Does Australia Have an Affordable Housing Problem and What Can Be Done About It?
Author(s) -
Yates Judith
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8462.12174
Subject(s) - affordable housing , economic shortage , renting , rental housing , business , economic growth , low income , public economics , finance , labour economics , economics , demographic economics , political science , government (linguistics) , linguistics , philosophy , law
As a result of economic trends in Australia over the past 25 years, a growing proportion of households have faced high housing costs in relation to their income because of a shortage of affordable housing, particularly in areas where there is ready access to well‐paid employment. Problems have been particularly severe for lower income renters. This article provides a proposal to address this shortage, based on encouraging institutional financing of affordable rental housing, suggests more controversial policies that might be needed to address underlying causes and identifies a number of reasons why so little progress has been made.