Affordable Housing in NSW: Past to Present

Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.

Briefing Paper No. 14/2005 by John Wilkinson

The onset of booms, in business activity, has frequently led to escalations in house prices which, in turn, result in a shrinkage in affordable housing (pp.4-5, 14,16,18-22,27-29)
Incomes, earned by those on the basic wage or just above, have increased far less than house prices have increased, during the last 25 years (pp.32-33)
During the period immediately after the second world war, governments, at both a federal and state level, decided on intervention to solve a crisis in affordable housing (pp.5-15)
Since the late 1970s, however, governments have largely withdrawn from providing housing for people encountering housing difficulties (pp.16-32)
Rather than providing homes, governments have turned to providing small amounts of rent assistance as a means of alleviating the accommodation difficulties of those on low incomes (pp.20-25)
Sydney has become a particularly difficult environment for those on the basic wage (or just over) to find affordable housing (p.33)
In recent years, the NSW government, in conjunction with Sydney local governments, has attempted some initiatives to provide a small amount of affordable housing (pp.39-43)

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