Provision of social housing is slowly shifting from a model of public supply (owned and managed by governments) to a mixed model.
Community housing providers are playing a greater role, through both title and management transfers of former public housing and new housing development.
However, more should be done to assess the future demand for social and affordable rental properties and develop strategies for meeting it.
More developed business cases must be tested and applied that incorporate the broader community returns derived from appropriate social and affordable rental housing, such as lower health and hospital expenditure.
Collecting comprehensive and consistent housing data across different government departments and housing providers is vital in developing these use cases.
It would allow governments to establish a pragmatic and accurate basis for assessing social housing supply and demand as a form of infrastructure. For more on this topic, see Reform 8.3: Social infrastructure is economic infrastructure too.