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Individualised housing assistance: findings and policy options
Citation
Jacobs, K and Hulse, K and Stone, W and Wiesel, I, Individualised housing assistance: findings and policy options, AHURI Final Report, 269 pp. 1-37. ISSN 1834-7223 (2016) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2016 AHURI. Licensed under Creative Commmons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
DOI: doi:10.18408/ahuri-4105001
Abstract
- Recent years have seen a trend towards the individualisation of social programs and away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ models, in Australia and other similar countries.
- In Australia, individualisation is the centrepiece of one of the country’s most transformative social reforms, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which aims to provide people living with disabilities greater control over their lives through individualised funding to purchase the support that they require.
- Parts of the Australian housing assistance system are already individualised to an extent, through payment of government transfers to people in receipt of income support to find accommodation in the private market to rent. However, such demand-side assistance is typically standardised rather than tailored to individual preferences and needs.
- In practical terms, it is difficult to exercise choice in the private rental market due to shortages of affordable accommodation. Only government investment in addressing supply shortages will increase the choice for very-low-income and vulnerable households.
- Other parts of the housing assistance system operated traditionally in a supplydriven, ‘top-down’ model. States and territories have been experimenting, often over a long period, with new models that provide greater choice of providers, different forms of housing management, and new types of connections with other types of support services.
- There is widespread support for more customised products and services, although some elements are controversial (e.g. allocations protocols, different lease lengths and diversity in rent setting).
- A move to individualisation of housing products and services requires careful attention to regulation and monitoring of standards as well as evaluation of the outcomes for very-low-income and vulnerable households. Tailored forms of housing assistance should have a prevention/early intervention focus, as well as provide for intermittent and ongoing needs.
- Individualisation could involve clients having a greater say in developing more customised support packages, even without a system of support funding/personal budgets. Some vulnerable people would need support and advocacy in this process.
- It is important to experiment with, and then evaluate the effectiveness of, new means of improving individualisation in housing assistance; obtaining the views of providers and consumers/clients is important in this process.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Human Society |
| Research Group: | Policy and administration |
| Research Field: | Social policy |
| Objective Division: | Law, Politics and Community Services |
| Objective Group: | Government and politics |
| Objective Field: | Public services policy advice and analysis |
| UTAS Author: | Jacobs, K (Professor Keith Jacobs) |
| ID Code: | 110822 |
| Year Published: | 2016 |
| Deposited By: | School of Social Sciences |
| Deposited On: | 2016-08-16 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-06-23 |
| Downloads: | 241 View Download Statistics |
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