Social and Affordable Housing

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (14:38): I seek leave to make a brief statement before addressing a question without notice to the Minister for Human Services on the topic of rental affordability.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: Last night, the federal Treasurer handed down the budget, which yet again failed to show leadership in investing in the essential social infrastructure of social housing. In fact, social housing investment is trending down. With not one single house added into the social housing pool in Australia, no strategy to deal with rising homelessness and no increase to JobSeeker and other income support payments, we are seeing a continued trend in rising housing insecurity felt by some of our most vulnerable South Australians. My questions to the minister are:

1. With no commitment from the federal government to establish incentives to encourage investment in social and affordable housing, what is the South Australian government doing to build more social housing to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens are not forced into homelessness?

2. Can the minister provide this chamber with the total number of people who are sleeping rough in South Australia tonight versus the total number of public and private rentals available?

The PRESIDENT: Before calling the minister, I just remind the Hon. Mr Simms that he did have quite a bit of opinion in that explanation. However, he has been set a bad example by some other more senior members here earlier today. I call the Minister for Human Services.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for his question. There are quite a lot of issues to unpack in what he has asked. I will do my best to endeavour to respond to them all, but if I haven't answered them all I am sure he will ask me a supplementary at some stage.

The issue of affordable housing has been something that has been on the South Australian government's radar for quite some time, therefore we have already produced a strategy, Our Housing Future Strategy 2020-2030, which was published late in 2019 and addresses a lot of the issues that he has raised. I think it's important to point out, too, that the housing spectrum consists of a range of components and there can be movement in between all of those. If we look at the issue of public housing, which is the housing that is managed by the South Australian Housing Authority, there are some 34,000 properties in South Australia for our most vulnerable and the rental for those people is capped at a household income of 25 per cent of their income.

He will probably grow quite tired of me quoting these statistics, but I think it is worth reminding the house that when we came to office the public housing system in particular was in very poor condition. The average age of our properties is some 40 years old. The stock was built with larger households in mind. We have a tendency for people to need single properties these days, whereas a lot of them were two to three-bedroom homes for working families some time ago. It takes time to convert that stock into ones that are modern for today's client in these times.

We also had a program in the forward estimates, courtesy of the former Labor government, that was a sales viability program. One of the things that the former government did when they needed cash for the rest of the budget was they used Housing Trust stock as an ATM. They reduced the cash balance, they reduced the maintenance budget and they sold houses. So under the former government, there were some 7,500 properties sold for $1.5 billion. When we came to office, the sort of average annual number of properties being sold for that program was in the order of 600. It has been my aim to reduce that to net zero. We are down to 150, so we are on track to see that stabilise.

In addition to that particular stock, which obviously is managed by the government, there is the community housing sector. I think there are five or there might be six tier 1s now. They also provide more affordable housing in the rental market. They have the capacity to use capital funds from the federal government's NHFIC funding arrangement and their goal is to increase in the rental sector.

There has also been a lack over the years of affordable houses to purchase. If people who are in those lower income brackets can purchase a house, it takes pressure off the private rental market, so that is why we have had a program: 70 affordable homes, through the 2019-20 budget, and then 1,000, through the strategy, in addition. Those are very, very popular. We have an affordable housing website, which is called HomeSeeker, that people who are on lower incomes can register for. They will get specific advice about a range of things.

We have been a bit ahead of the curve, in terms of when COVID hit last year. The rental subsidy that was available to landlords and tenants through COVID last year, when they could get a grant of $1,000 to assist people in hardship, wasn't actually well taken up. I can find the figures for the honourable member, but I think from memory that it was less than 500. There is quite a bit of flux in the market at the moment. There is obviously demand for rentals and demand for housing.

In the background, there are the other programs that I mentioned when you asked me a question about this previously. There is a lot that goes on in the background, notwithstanding that there is a lot of media interest in this area. Programs such as Commonwealth Rent Assistance and the Housing Trust support people in the private rental market as well with bond and rent.

There is quite a range of programs to assist people. I also note that the federal government is providing support for single parents to be able to purchase a home with potentially as little as 2 per cent deposit. It is very much about recognising that there are different segments in that housing market and that we provide support to people in those points of contact.

I might add, too, that I do get a lot of correspondence from people from time to time about people in particular situations. Those issues generally do get resolved relatively quickly. Usually by the time the letter gets to my desk, somebody has been assisted into the private rental market or been provided with a public home. It's about trying to make sure that all the parts of the system are working efficiently and effectively together, and that's our long-term goal as well.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Simms has a supplementary.