Hybrid Organisations – that integrate competing organisational principles – have become a preferred means of tackling the complexity of today's societal problems. This chapter provides a worked example of the challenges faced by some of the larger housing third sector organisations in Australia as they have become a distinctive group of hybrid organisations that combine elements of the public and private sectors with those of third sector organisations. We argue that this is a case of 'fragile hybridity' in which competing internal logics within broader political and market contexts can either constrain or enable innovation and scaling up of hybrid organisational models.
This book presents the first comprehensive overview of this country's housing policy in 25 years. Exploring the economics, politics and administration of housing provision, the book identifies the many dimensions of housing affordability and government actions affecting affordability outcomes. Building on this analysis it lays out priorities for the transformational national strategy needed for a fairer and more productive housing system.
As in many other nations, Australia's intensifying shortage of affordable housing represents one of the most pressing policy challenges for government. Against a backdrop of ongoing population growth, the 20-year virtual moratorium on public housing construction means that, by 2016, the gross social housing provision deficit had reached 140,000 dwellings. And, while largely frozen in scale, the country's public housing system has also become increasingly residualised and rundown. In tackling these twin problems, some policy-makers and advocates have invested hopes in an emerging non-government affordable housing industry, largely configured around not-for-profit community housing providers. For some government players, however, the sector's nascent status and therefore 'restricted capacity' has been judged a crucial limitation on the extent to which it can be reasonably delegated responsibility for easing national housing stress. Applying a system-minded conception of the 'affordable housing industry' and adopting a multidimensional 'capacity' framework, this research investigated the factors limiting the scope for the industry's further expansion. In highlighting industry capacity restrictions stemming from the hollowing-out of government and its institutions, our findings connect with a wider policy studies literature and will have resonance in many countries beyond Australia – particularly in the Anglophone world.
As in many other nations, Australia's intensifying shortage of affordable housing represents one of the most pressing policy challenges for government. Against a backdrop of ongoing population growth, the 20-year virtual moratorium on public housing construction means that, by 2016, the gross social housing provision deficit had reached 140,000 dwellings. And, while largely frozen in scale, the country's public housing system has also become increasingly residualised and rundown. In tackling these twin problems, some policy-makers and advocates have invested hopes in an emerging non-government affordable housing industry, largely configured around not-for-profit community housing providers. For some government players, however, the sector's nascent status and therefore 'restricted capacity' has been judged a crucial limitation on the extent to which it can be reasonably delegated responsibility for easing national housing stress. Applying a system-minded conception of the 'affordable housing industry' and adopting a multidimensional 'capacity' framework, this research investigated the factors limiting the scope for the industry's further expansion. In highlighting industry capacity restrictions stemming from the hollowing-out of government and its institutions, our findings connect with a wider policy studies literature and will have resonance in many countries beyond Australia – particularly in the Anglophone world.
Australian governments have looked to AHURI to investigate what would support an affordable housing industry to:• Generate new affordable housing supply• Facilitate stock modernisation and neighbourhood renewal in former public housing areas under new social landlords• Improve service quality, enhance social renter mobility and promote tenant wellbeing and economic participation.Responding to these concerns, this AHURI research aimed to advance understanding of Australia's affordable housing industry and its capacity to expand.
Reliable measures of provider efficiency and effectiveness are fundamental in enabling governments to determine how best to deliver social housing services. However, Australia's existing suite of official social housing performance measures is seriously inadequate in this. This project, therefore, developed and trialled a conceptual framework and methodology to address this problem. The research responded to the longstanding policy-maker and industry interest in improving performance metrics for Australian social housing; a sector encompassing both the public housing authorities and the not-for-profit landlord entities which cater for low and very low-income households.
Shifts in international investment markets, Australia's demographic profile and 'residential consumer' sentiment have recently combined to enhance the prospects for the emergence of a 'mainstream market' Build-to-Rent (BtR) sector. Antecedents include the corresponding US and UK sectors, of which Australian stakeholders are increasingly aware; Australian commercial property sectors, in which international investors are increasingly active; and forerunners such as Meriton's rental business and purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA). PBSA has already generated over 90,000 newly-built units in Australia's cities over the past 10-15 years.Pipeline BtR projects may presage the emergence of a significant new component within Australia's housing market. Under current Australian housing market conditions and policy settings, however, it remains difficult to envisage any rapid BtR take-off of the kind seen in the UK in recent years, or the establishment of a large and highly embedded purpose-built-for-market-rental industry as in the USA. Although Australian BtR project returns are impaired by both market conditions and policy settings, the industry tends to focus on the latter; highlighting land tax, GST and income tax as it affects overseas investors utilising Managed Investment Trust (MIT) vehicles. Of these policy levers, evidence suggests that the single most significant impact on BtR returns would arise through re-balancing state/territory government land taxes to incentivise purpose-built professionally managed rental (as opposed to small-scale letting of existing properties).Except where supported by some form of public subsidy or under rezoning, BtR will not generate affordable housing. Nor will it significantly ease wider housing affordability. However, it has the potential to fulfil other important public policy goals – including widened housing diversity, higher construction and management standards and a more secure form of private rental housing. It could also beneficially introduce a counter-cyclical economic component into the otherwise volatile residential construction industry. Therefore, a legitimate case can be made for facilitating the establishment and expansion of a BtR sector in Australia. To fulfil the widely-held aspiration for an affordable component within primarily market rental developments, however, additional government support will be essential, such as discounted land grants to Community Housing Providers (CHPs). Without a strategic national framework that integrates tax reform, revenue support, land and planning levers, an emergent BtR sector will fail to generate rental at scale. In this regard Australia will continue to lag comparable countries like US and UK.
