Evaluating a novel approach to social and affordable housing in Australia

Stable and affordable housing is a key ingredient in breaking cycles of social disadvantage. But in the face of steeply rising real estate prices, it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to provide sufficient high-quality, well-located and affordable housing for those most in need.

CEI has helped evaluate one approach to the social housing challenge, as part of a research consortium led by the Melbourne Institute (The University of Melbourne), also involving experts from the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia (CIRCA), RMIT University and Monash University.

The New South Wales (NSW, Australia) government’s Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) is part of a decade-long whole-of-government program to provide more and better homes, and more holistic support to tenants.

“This fund is an innovative, private-sector-inspired way of providing new social housing – and on that front, at least, it seems to be working,” says Caitlin Clymer, CEI Advisor. “SAHF started in 2017 and is on track to meet a target of 3,486 new social homes by the end of this calendar year.”

The fund contracts non-profit agencies to provide housing, alongside targeted and tailored coordination of social services to support tenants’ wider needs, such as referral to local medical or training providers. Government pays agreed monthly service fees, while agencies retain control and ownership of all homes.

“Melbourne Institute’s analysis found the fund has met its goal of ensuring a high proportion of the new homes are targeted to identified groups experiencing high housing disadvantage,” Caitlin explains. “More than half of SAHF tenants are 55 years or older, more than half are women, and more than four in ten are single women. Overall, 63% of SAHF homes have been offered to target populations, a full 35 percentage points higher than for other community housing.”

Also encouraging are findings that SAHF has resulted in greater housing stability for tenants – up to 50% fewer lease terminations, while those identifying as Aboriginal experienced a 14% reduction in homelessness.

“CIRCA found that tenant satisfaction with SAHF housing is high – and SAHF tenants are more satisfied with all aspects of their lives than tenants in other public housing,” says Caitlin. “Most SAHF tenants report improvements in physical and mental health since moving in, and they specifically cite a sense of safety and agency as reasons for feeling less stressed and anxious.”

However, economic analysis from the Melbourne Institute shows these benefits, when monetised, do not outweigh the overall cost of delivering SAHF over a 10-year period. “On current analysis, it is considerably more expensive to deliver this program in comparison with other social housing,” says CEI Director Dr Vanessa Rose. “That said, the analysis method used may not capture all benefits, nor the longitudinal outcomes for individuals and families.”

In terms of the implementation of SAHF, on which CEI reported, findings are largely positive: social agencies have successfully integrated this program into business-as-usual. This process has been helped considerably by close alignment with agencies’ core business model and mission, and the fact that many have grown through SAHF investment.

“Some of the biggest barriers to implementation have been due to the complexity and lack of flexibility in government contracts with agencies, which has likely resulted in higher program costs,” Vanessa notes. “And while the inclusion of tailored support coordination is valued, agency staff would like more time to build rapport with tenants, so they can more effectively address needs. CIRCA also found that socially isolated and non-English-speaking tenants struggled to access appropriate support.”

Other key lessons from the evaluation:

• Tailored support coordination is positively regarded by agencies and tenants, but we don’t know how effective it is
• One size does not fit all; good matching between tenants and dwellings is key to success
• Agencies’ strong external networks have enabled successful coordinated support for tenants

How does the SAHF work?

SAHF contracts are service agreements between the NSW Government and social agencies (known as Community Housing Providers), providing for:

• access to good quality accommodation
• property and tenancy management
• access to support services tailored to improving the lives of individual residents (known as Tailored Support Coordination)

The dwellings must be new social housing supply, and can be a mix of new builds, redeveloped existing private housing, or newly constructed leaseholds. Community Housing Providers either own or lease the land and dwellings; the government does not take any stake in these assets before, during or after the contract term.

Community Housing Providers are paid a monthly service fee to assist with the operational costs of providing social housing services and tailored support coordination over a 25-year period (with the contact components for tailored support and data and reporting reviewed every three years).

Some dwellings are targeted to specific disadvantaged subpopulations, such as older people and older women (55+), domestic violence victims, single parent households or single people.

How and what did the research team evaluate?

The two-year evaluation of SAHF comprised an implementation evaluation (stakeholder and tenant focused), an outcome evaluation and an economic evaluation. Through use of interviews, surveys and administrative data sets, the goal was to assess the SAHF’s impacts on tenants, service providers and other key stakeholders involved in program delivery, for up to two years after tenancy commencement.

The overarching evaluation questions were:

• Did the SAHF Projects work? Why?
• For whom did the SAHF Projects work? Does the impact differ by population groups? What drives the differences?
• What are lessons learned from SAHF for future social housing policy?

The full evaluation report has recently been made available for download HERE

The Final Report for the Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) Evaluation was prepared by a research consortium led by the Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic and Social Research at The University of Melbourne, and involved experts from CEI, the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia (CIRCA), RMIT University and Monash University.