The NSW Labor government has released a 10-year plan to reform and rebuild the public, community and affordable housing system by delivering more homes, improving quality and maintenance, and creating a fairer system for tenants.
The media release reads, ‘The Homes for NSW Strategy tackles long-standing issues like long waitlists, poor maintenance and insecure housing that have left too many people without support’.
‘Developed in partnership with tenants, advocates, community housing providers, homelessness services, unions and frontline workers, the plan is shaped by the people who live and work in the system every day.
‘This strategy complements the work already underway by the Minns Labor Government through the Building Homes for NSW program, which is delivering 8,400 new public homes, with at least half for women and children escaping domestic and family violence; upgrading 30,000 existing homes to make them safer, modern and more energy efficient; providing record funding for homelessness services; and bringing housing maintenance back in-house, restoring control and accountability’.
After ‘years of neglect under the former government’, NSW Labor says it ‘completed 1,700 new homes in the first year of the Building Homes for NSW program, the biggest increase in the state’s recent history’.
According to www.nsw.gov.au/homes-for-nsw-strategy, the plan includes ‘abolishing 2, 5, and 10-year fixed term leases to support stability and reviewing the ‘two-offer’ policy to support choice.’
The 64 page document, Homes for NSW Strategy 2025–2035, says major reforms are being introduced.
This includes embedding ‘a system-wide customer service culture, we need to start with organisational change’.
Council’s role
And given ‘Councils are key partners bringing local understanding of housing needs and opportunities’ the document says the government will ‘clarify responsibilities between Homes NSW, CHPs and councils’, and understand ‘what councils are doing in the local area related to housing and homelessness’.
As for climate change (page 35), the government says it will embed climate and disaster resilience into property design and maintenance.
‘We will review climate risk modelling and develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan and Net Zero Plan in partnership with the community housing sector that identifies priority risks and opportunities and provides a detailed roadmap to put adaptation into practice’.
‘At Homes NSW, we have the largest property portfolio in the state, maintaining over 95,000 homes.
‘We need to make the best use of these existing homes, including undertaking timely repairs, refurbishments and modifications’.
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