Remote Indigenous Housing Challenges

 

We are not the first

Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.

King Lear, Act Five, Scene Three.

 

The community of Yarrabah is less than an hour’s drive from Cairns, but displays many of the characteristics of hundreds of other remote communities across remote Australia. A number of recent media stories on the impact of the COVID pandemic within the community have pointed directly to the risks and implications for individuals linked to the extent of overcrowding in the community. An ABC news article dated 23 January was titled: ‘Indigenous mayors sound alarm over crowded housing amid COVID outbreaks’ (link here). An SBS article dated 16 February 2022 was titled: ‘We were afraid: North Qld families struggle with Covid in overcrowded housing’ (link here). Both articles emphasise the human cost, both real and potential of overcrowding.

 

I recently provided a submission to the current Productivity Commission review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (link here) which focussed on remote housing needs. Given the importance of the issues raised, I have republished the submission slightly amended as a CAEPR Topical Issues Paper (link here). The paper is titled: Remote Indigenous housing requires ongoing policy focus: submission to the review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. The NHHA is a national agreement that provides for mainstream Commonwealth funding contributions to the states and territories for social housing and homelessness.

 

The abstract reads as follows:

This Topical Issues paper identifies remote Indigenous housing as a structural gap in the nation’s overarching housing policies. The paper reproduces a submission to the current Productivity Commission review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA) which argues for a much stronger focus to be placed upon remote Indigenous housing in the renewal of the NHHA scheduled for 2023. The submission outlines the extent and systemic underpinnings of the substantial Indigenous housing shortfall in remote Australia, and assesses the adequacy of current policy frameworks to meet that need and thus mitigate ongoing adverse social, health and economic consequences. In particular, the submission argues that the national housing target in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap is, in its current form, an inadequate mechanism to address remote housing need. The submission makes a number of specific recommendations designed to ensure that remote Indigenous housing needs are effectively addressed going forward.

 

When thinking about remote housing programs, the key point to remember is the human consequences of poor housing which extend beyond the obvious adverse health implications and affect virtually every aspect of life for families and wider communities. Deep disadvantage is systemic and structural, and is concentrated in remote Australia. Fixing housing is just one element, but it is a necessary element,  for a solution. And fixing housing requires governments to invest, because of the existence of complex market failure that inhibits housing provision by the private sector. This is why the next iteration of the NHHA is so important.

 

Submissions to the review close on 18 March.