The Minister for Housing launched Planning for the Future: New directions for Community housing in New South Wales 2007/08 – 2012/13 in November 2007. The strategy creates opportunities for a greatly expanded community housing sector, offering a wider variety of social housing tailored to individual needs.
Growth is central to this vision and Planning for the Future contains a commitment to more than double the size of community housing over the next ten years. The growth in community housing will be delivered through a range of initiatives which were announced in March 2007, including:
- an Affordable Housing Innovations Fund consisting of $49.8 million in new funding to kick-start investment in affordable housing by expanding debt equity partnership programs;
- a commitment to channel $70 million of the new supply program directly through community housing providers to allow them to develop housing themselves; and
- the introduction of long-term leases over community housing properties to give providers a predictable income stream to support borrowings which can be used to build affordable housing.
The strategy highlights five themes, which are priority areas of activity:
- Growth - facilitate growth and continued innovation in the community housing sector to assist more people in need
- Diverse and flexible responses - support diverse and flexible responses to meet individual and local needs using local opportunities
- Stronger communities - support individuals and their local communities to become more sustainable, self-sufficient and resilient
- Capacity and confidence - building the capacity of and confidence in community housing to ensure sector growth and the delivery of quality tenant outcomes
- Viability and sustainability - putting in place financing and structural arrangements that achieve long-term business sustainability for community housing providers
The Office of Community Housing is working with stakeholders to develop an action plan for implementing Planning for the Future.
If you would like to know more about the strategy or the action plan, email planningforthefuture@housing.nsw.gov.au