3.2 Increasing access to safe and stable housing

2024-25 Budget Measures

The NSW Government is committed to a society where all people in NSW have access to safe, secure and stable housing that supports their economic prosperity and individual wellbeing. This Government is focused on addressing gender equality at all levels, across housing supply, rental affordability, social housing and homelessness, and key worker housing.

With a growing population, the lack of housing supply across NSW is exacerbating the housing affordability crisis.⁶³ The NSW Government is committed to confronting the housing crisis and boosting the supply of housing across our State.

Rental affordability is a cost of living pressure

In NSW, rental affordability has deteriorated significantly, particularly for low-income households.⁶⁴  Rental stress is when a household pays 30 per cent or more of their income on rent.⁶⁵ As shown below, it is a particular problem for women.

In Greater Sydney, women can expect to spend 53.3 per cent of their before-tax income renting a unit, 11.7 percentage points more than for men (41.6 per cent). In regional NSW, women can expect to spend 39.7 per cent of their before-tax full-time earnings renting a unit, 7.8 percentage points more than for men (31.9 per cent). Table 3.1 shows that renting a house is more unaffordable than renting a unit.

Reference:⁶⁶

The maps below show how rental stress is experienced across the State, by Statistical Area 4 (SA4), by males and females.⁶⁷ The maps represent the percentage of income required to rent a typical dwelling in each region, based on average male and female earnings, respectively. Where greater than 30 per cent of income is required for housing costs, this is generally considered housing stress.

In NSW, more than a third of the population rent. More people are renting and renting for longer – many of whom will rent for their whole lives. Some renters are worse off than others, through increased financial pressure and lack of financial flexibility: single parent families, people in lower socio-economic brackets, people with a disability and older people. Gender impact research shows women are over-represented in some of these categories.

Women have lower rates of home ownership in Australia compared to men, have equal to higher rates of renting and are more likely to be the head of a sole parent family – over-representing their exposure to impacts from the current rental market challenges and housing insecurity compared to their male counterparts.

Trina Jones, NSW Rental Commissioner

The NSW Government is committed to addressing rental affordability. In August 2023, Trina Jones was appointed as the first Rental Commissioner in NSW. The Rental Commissioner has been established to work closely with government, consumer affairs, stakeholders and renters to make renting in NSW fairer, more affordable and more secure.

In Sydney and some regional locations there are very few local government areas that are affordable for essential workers (teachers, nurses, police officers, social workers, ambulance officers, aged and disability care workers and child care workers) to rent in.⁶⁸ This emphasises the pressing need for targeted housing solutions for our essential service workforce.

The NSW Government is working to ensure more of our key workers, some of which are highly feminised professions such as nurses, child care and welfare support workers, have access to housing in areas close to their places of employment.

This Budget invests $655.0 million for key worker and rental housing. Key investments include:

• $450.0 million for a Key Worker Build-to-Rent Program to be delivered by Landcom across Sydney
• $200.1 million for key health worker accommodation to help recruit and retain key health workers across rural and regional areas of the State.

Women are overrepresented in social housing and homelessness services

Over 34,000 women and children are on the social housing waiting list, making up 59.5 per cent of total applicants.⁶⁹ More than 5,000 of these women are assessed as in urgent need.⁷⁰ These are known as priority applicants, with allocations made on the basis of greatest need for social housing. Applicants may have more than one of the specified characteristics.

Supporting people to access social housing

This Budget invests $5.1 billion in social housing across the State. The NSW Government will build 8,400 social homes, of which 6,200 will be new homes and 2,200 will be replacement homes. At least 50 per cent of these new homes will be prioritised for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. A further 33,500 homes will be repaired. This is the largest ever investment by a NSW Government in social housing.

A consequence of deteriorating rental affordability is that the numbers of women experiencing homelessness has continued to rise. Of the 68,388 people accessing specialist homelessness services in 2022-23 in NSW, 59.2 per cent were female.⁷¹ The three main reasons for women seeking assistance in NSW were family and domestic violence (29.1 per cent), housing crisis (20.9 per cent), and financial difficulties (9.6 per cent).⁷² 

There are other gendered barriers to accessing homelessness services. For example, gender diverse people experience particular barriers to housing stability due to the highly gendered nature of accommodation options in the homelessness services sector.⁷³ In addition, while 58.2 per cent of people experiencing homelessness are men,⁷⁴ men only make up 40.8 per cent of presentations to Specialist Homelessness Services.⁷⁵

This highlights potential gaps in men accessing the support they need.

This Budget invests $527.6 million for crisis housing and homelessness services, including:

• over $260.0 million to provide homeless people and families who need safe shelter with temporary accommodation and support to move to more stable housing
• over $250.0 million to support people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, including those leaving correctional centres and mental health services. This will also secure funding for Specialist Homelessness Services and the Aboriginal Community Controlled sector for homelessness services.

In 2022-23, 23.1 per cent of people seeking Specialist Homelessness Services in NSW reported domestic and family violence as the main reason they were seeking assistance.⁷⁶ 75.4 per cent of these were women.⁷⁷ Safe, affordable, long-term housing is critical to establishing a life free from abuse.

Since 2022, the NSW Government has approved the development of 39 new crisis refuges for women and children. The locations of these new refuges are targeted to areas of unmet demand for crisis accommodation. Seven of the new refuges are now operational, and the remaining refuges will progressively open once construction is completed. Additional new refuges will be approved through another round of procurement that is underway. The provision of these much-needed refuges will ensure victim-survivors have access to the support services they need to stay safe and plan for their future.