Toward One in Ten: Reimagining Housing
In the 1980s, one in every ten new Australian homes was public housing—not a last resort, but a self-funding, mainstream option for working families. Today, that ratio has collapsed to one in fifty.
A new Blue Mountainsbriefing paper, Towards One in Ten: Reimagining Australian Public and Social Housing, argues this collapse was caused by deliberate policy choices—and that policy can fix it.
The "Relabelling Trick"
The paper tests every policy against one question: Does it rebuild direct, worker-accessible public housing at a 10% construction rate, or does it just relabel decline?
Historically, narrowing eligibility from broad working families to exclusively "greatest need" tipped public housing from self-funding into permanent underfunding. Subsequent rebrands—merging stock into "social housing" or chasing market-dependent "affordable housing"—failed to reverse the trend. Combined public and social stock remains under 5% of all homes.
Grading Today's Reform Proposals
- National Housing Supply & Affordability Council — State of the Housing System 2025 - Sets a stock target, but specifies no build rate or public owner.
National Shelter: Commits funding, but measures stock share rather than construction rates.
NSW Building Homes package: $6.6bn, 8,400 homesOne-off figure, not an ongoing rate
ACTU Campaign: The outlier. Directly demands restoring a one-in-ten new-build rate for public housing using modular construction.
Local Gaps & Tested Fixes
In the Blue Mountains, the impact is visible in empty heritage sites sitting unused, stalled Community Land Trusts awaiting state capital, and ~1,000 short-term rentals squeezing long-term tenants.
The solutions aren't untested. Models like Denmark’s revolving National Building Fund, the Netherlands' guaranteed housing corporations, and Austria’s limited-profit providers lock in affordability in perpetuity.
The Key Demands
Ahead of the 2027 NSW election, the paper calls for:
Converting one-off funding into an ongoing annual build rate.
Using Homes NSW to anchor regional modular build hubs.
Establishing a revolving Housing Investment Fund.
Lowering short-term rental caps and introducing a vacant-property levy.
Formally backing Community Land Trusts.
Rebuilding public housing doesn't require new ideas—just the political will to specify a build rate, a direct owner, and permanent funding.