"Affordable" Housing ?
The focus in discussions about housing affordability is clearly on first home buyers. It focuses on interest rates for their mortgages and on land releases by state government. Renters are apparently to be catered for mainly by the trickle down benefit of moving first-time buyers out of the rental market and into home ownership through the mechanisms of interest rates and land supply.
Some see housing affordability as a matter of whether one can live close to friends and family. Clearly the only ones who have to deal with that problem are those with family and friends in other than the poorest suburbs. They are the middle class and so by definition they are the politically strong, as well as being economically strong enough to expect a choice about where they will live. They expect policies that will allow them to remain in the better locations, subsidised if necessary by government.
Those struggling to pay rent in the outer suburbs simply hope for a subsidy to enable them to afford ANY roof there.
The definition of affordable housing only becomes difficult in the political context. In truth, the poorest are the only ones who have a real problem with affordable housing, and that should honestly be kept in mind to keep things in perspective so that the whole debate isn't co-opted by yuppies, politicians chasing votes and NGOs building empires.
Levels of social and community housing influence housing affordability in the broader market but the stigmatisation of tenants in public housing makes investment there the least attractive political option. I believe that could easily be changed with the proposal I will put.
Firstly however, there is of course another logic to the traditional focus on home buyers.
They must make an advance commitment to participation in the market economy for the next 25 years! They are thereby drafted to be loyal, contracted "soldiers" in the front line of the battle to remain winners, not losers, in the global economy.
Although the focus on them by Liberals and Labor is understandable, globalization (low wage competitors) and robots are making employment less secure for us all. This is a bit of a problem for a 25 year mortgage, so the focus upon education of those in the more economically competitive and successful families is also understandable. The logic is that if we don't back the winners in a competitive world economy there might be NO spoils of victory to distribute through taxation and trickle down economics.
So the left finds itself inexorably drawn towards the right.
But competitive markets are coming under pressure from the victims of this increasing competition, especially as a jobless future looms for many. How could our economy stay competitive with a rising welfare bill, a bill which will also have to include rising subsidies for housing in an ever inflating housing market?
I believe that the solution lies in a new arrangement for public housing under which tenants who are not self sufficient in the market economy can be increasingly self sufficient in public housing - more on what I mean by "increasingly self-sufficiency" later, but first some common sense considerations.
A journey towards greater self-sufficiency in unemployment would be a gradual one and it would need a step-by-step process in which people could move back into the market economy if they desired. Free choice is key to self-sufficiency as an empowering and productive pursuit . Without freedom of choice in this pursuit, public housing tenants will remain resentful & public housing will remain the unattractive way to address housing affordability that it is today.
In order to introduce choice into the equation currently imposed upon unemployed public housing tenants, the Centrelink mutual obligations requirements would need to be changed.
This first step along the pathway is therefore a national reform that would apply to all unemployed people.
In essence the reform would allow unemployed people to "earn or learn" as it does now
... OR
participate in voluntary community work in full satisfaction of their mutual obligations.
The paper at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/change-centrelinks-activity-test.html
will allay any fears about management of such a reform and any potential for abuse by participants.
This reform would let people find new & productive ways to be socially included.
The second step is one which participants in public housing or on the waiting list could take beyond volunteering. They could voluntarily persue limited agendas of their own, agreed to by approved community organisation which serve the wider purpose of "community development - again free choice is key to success.
Still at no cost to government and under the local management arrangements
outlined in the link above on Centrelink reform, unemployed tenants or would-be tenants could participate and be accountable in projects of their own design to maintain and improve their neighbourhood surroundings for themselves and their neighbours.
One fully fleshed out vision can be found at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/neighbourhoods-that-work.html
... and an online transparent fully accessible and fully accountable self management process
that can involve all stakeholders as equal partners, including governments community organizations neighbours and tenants
is being refined at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/ntws-activity-organiser---createvillage.html
This process would ensure that all parties would be involved to create & complete successful projects.
Self-empowerment of the disempowered will become ever more important in a resources constrained competitive world world in which both winners and losers are being created. Cooperation will become much more important ...
new processes like the one described above are clearly needed.
For more background on the issues around cooperative participation see
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/participation.html
The benefits of government reform of Centrelink & support for this neighborhood initiative are described at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/why-would-government-do-it.html
Some see housing affordability as a matter of whether one can live close to friends and family. Clearly the only ones who have to deal with that problem are those with family and friends in other than the poorest suburbs. They are the middle class and so by definition they are the politically strong, as well as being economically strong enough to expect a choice about where they will live. They expect policies that will allow them to remain in the better locations, subsidised if necessary by government.
Those struggling to pay rent in the outer suburbs simply hope for a subsidy to enable them to afford ANY roof there.
The definition of affordable housing only becomes difficult in the political context. In truth, the poorest are the only ones who have a real problem with affordable housing, and that should honestly be kept in mind to keep things in perspective so that the whole debate isn't co-opted by yuppies, politicians chasing votes and NGOs building empires.
Levels of social and community housing influence housing affordability in the broader market but the stigmatisation of tenants in public housing makes investment there the least attractive political option. I believe that could easily be changed with the proposal I will put.
Firstly however, there is of course another logic to the traditional focus on home buyers.
They must make an advance commitment to participation in the market economy for the next 25 years! They are thereby drafted to be loyal, contracted "soldiers" in the front line of the battle to remain winners, not losers, in the global economy.
Although the focus on them by Liberals and Labor is understandable, globalization (low wage competitors) and robots are making employment less secure for us all. This is a bit of a problem for a 25 year mortgage, so the focus upon education of those in the more economically competitive and successful families is also understandable. The logic is that if we don't back the winners in a competitive world economy there might be NO spoils of victory to distribute through taxation and trickle down economics.
So the left finds itself inexorably drawn towards the right.
But competitive markets are coming under pressure from the victims of this increasing competition, especially as a jobless future looms for many. How could our economy stay competitive with a rising welfare bill, a bill which will also have to include rising subsidies for housing in an ever inflating housing market?
I believe that the solution lies in a new arrangement for public housing under which tenants who are not self sufficient in the market economy can be increasingly self sufficient in public housing - more on what I mean by "increasingly self-sufficiency" later, but first some common sense considerations.
A journey towards greater self-sufficiency in unemployment would be a gradual one and it would need a step-by-step process in which people could move back into the market economy if they desired. Free choice is key to self-sufficiency as an empowering and productive pursuit . Without freedom of choice in this pursuit, public housing tenants will remain resentful & public housing will remain the unattractive way to address housing affordability that it is today.
In order to introduce choice into the equation currently imposed upon unemployed public housing tenants, the Centrelink mutual obligations requirements would need to be changed.
This first step along the pathway is therefore a national reform that would apply to all unemployed people.
In essence the reform would allow unemployed people to "earn or learn" as it does now
... OR
participate in voluntary community work in full satisfaction of their mutual obligations.
The paper at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/change-centrelinks-activity-test.html
will allay any fears about management of such a reform and any potential for abuse by participants.
This reform would let people find new & productive ways to be socially included.
The second step is one which participants in public housing or on the waiting list could take beyond volunteering. They could voluntarily persue limited agendas of their own, agreed to by approved community organisation which serve the wider purpose of "community development - again free choice is key to success.
Still at no cost to government and under the local management arrangements
outlined in the link above on Centrelink reform, unemployed tenants or would-be tenants could participate and be accountable in projects of their own design to maintain and improve their neighbourhood surroundings for themselves and their neighbours.
One fully fleshed out vision can be found at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/neighbourhoods-that-work.html
... and an online transparent fully accessible and fully accountable self management process
that can involve all stakeholders as equal partners, including governments community organizations neighbours and tenants
is being refined at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/ntws-activity-organiser---createvillage.html
This process would ensure that all parties would be involved to create & complete successful projects.
Self-empowerment of the disempowered will become ever more important in a resources constrained competitive world world in which both winners and losers are being created. Cooperation will become much more important ...
new processes like the one described above are clearly needed.
For more background on the issues around cooperative participation see
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/participation.html
The benefits of government reform of Centrelink & support for this neighborhood initiative are described at
http://landrights4all.weebly.com/why-would-government-do-it.html