Media release

18th June 2024

The peak body for community housing in NSW welcomed today’s Budget announcement of investment in the supply of desperately needed new social and affordable housing that will deliver an additional 1,550 homes per year to the state’s most vulnerable people.

“Today’s budget announcements mean we can start to confront the housing crisis in NSW.  The scale of the problem means that solving the crisis will take time,” said Mark Degotardi, CEO of the Community Housing Industry Association NSW (CHIA NSW).

“This investment offers immediate hope to our most vulnerable citizens and longer-term hope that we can make meaningful changes to a broken housing system.

“With 9,000 households on the priority waiting list for social housing, our combined challenge is significant.  This means government and the community housing sector need to work together to deliver as much social and affordable housing as we can.

CHIA NSW said it is critical that the funds are invested in ways that maximise the number of dwellings that are delivered.

“The community housing sector stand ready to work with the NSW Government to get the biggest bang for buck from available resources.

“The community housing sector can maximise the government’s funding by layering in debt finance and other forms of capital to increase the overall investment in new housing.”

“We can get more houses on the ground more quickly by government partnering with the community housing sector,” said Mr Degotardi.

CHIA NSW also encouraged government to consider other ways of increasing the outcomes from the Budget investment.

“Let’s also look at using government land and under-utilised housing assets to see how we can deliver more housing within the budget funding.

“These initiatives don’t hit the Budget – they just put under-utilised government assets to work,” said Mr Degotardi. “By leveraging government assets, community housing providers can build more social and affordable housing and help ease the crisis for NSW’s most vulnerable families.”

Media contact: Bron Matherson, 0438 844 765 or Alana Mew, 0419 929 722