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Interpretation of Queensland Government published statistics on social housing construction (dwelling commencements)

COVID-19Housing & homelessness

On 17 June 2021 the Queensland Government announced a $2.9 billion housing stimulus investment program. This supplements a pre-existing financial commitment to the Government’s 2021-2025 Housing and Homelessness Action Plan. The 2021 funding package involves three separate programs:

  • $1.74 billion under the Queensland Housing Investment Growth Initiative (QHIGI) to expand social housing across the state by 2,765 dwellings, substantially involving schemes already planned and designed. Implicitly, this involves capital grants (averaging $629k per dwelling) to community housing organisations (and possibly other providers).
  • A $1 billion investment fund (Queensland Housing Investment Fund – QHIF) to generate annual returns estimated at $40 million, implicitly to be channelled into ongoing revenue subsidies to participating housing developer-managers over a number of years. This model appears similar to the NSW Social and Affordable Housing Fund, and also the Victorian Social Housing Growth Fund (Pawson and Milligan 2015; Raynor 2017; Pawson et al. pp287-288). Again, published information suggests that some or all of the program – 3,600 homes to be developed over four years – will be delivered by community housing organisations.
  • $60 million to acquire two year leases on 1,000 existing dwellings under the Help to Home program. (Queensland Government,2021a)

 

Information released alongside the 2021 Queensland Budget also states that there will be ‘7,400 new builds over the next four years under the Queensland Housing Investment Growth Initiative’ (Queensland Government 2021b). This implies that the newly announced funding for 2,765 dwellings will supplement an existing program already funded to develop 4,635 homes.

Attempting to reconcile these various figures suggests that newly constructed homes during the term of the 2017-25 Housing Strategy will total 11,000 (2,765+3,600+4635). Separately, the Queensland Government has also stated that it is ‘increasing the supply of social and affordable housing by almost 10,000 over the life of our Housing Strategy’ (Queensland Government 2021b). This appears to imply that at least 1,000 existing public housing dwellings will be demolished or sold in the course of the 2017-25 Housing Strategy development program.

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