ACT has lowest proportion of community housing properties

Fewer than one in 10 of the ACT's social housing properties are community housing dwellings. Public housing dominates the territory's stock at 92 per cent.

The statistics were released in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's annual housing assistance report, which provides data on people living in social housing.

There were 11,921 social housing properties in the ACT in June 2020. Of those, 10,985 were public housing and 936 were community housing. But only 11,361 had tenants.

The AIHW said 8378 properties met standards for occupancy, but that 1860 properties were underutilised and 482 were considered to be overcrowded.

Community housing stock has surged across the country. The number of community housing properties has more than tripled in Australia over the past 15 years, from 32,000 in 2006 to 103,900 in 2020.

Nationwide, community housing represented 24 per cent of all social housing stock.

The AIHW said this was due to "the transfer of ownership or management of public housing dwellings to community housing organisations".

Tasmania has the highest proportion of community housing properties at 49 per cent, which is on par with the state's public housing stock.

In NSW, community housing properties account for 32 per cent of all social housing properties.

The Northern Territory has a lower proportion of community housing properties than the ACT at 3.7 per cent but not when Indigenous community housing properties are included, which make up 14.5 per cent of the Northern Territory's total social housing stock.

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Community housing properties are managed by not-for-profit community organisations.

The ACT government has often defended its public housing investment by saying the territory had the largest per capita investment in public housing.

However, community housing providers have questioned this investment saying the only reason the ACT had the highest per capita public housing investment is because other jurisdictions had turned towards community housing.

The ACT government has pledged to build 600 affordable housing properties, which includes community housing, in the next five years as part of the Labor-Greens power-sharing agreement.

Earlier this year, the Canberra Liberals put forward a motion to call on the government to provide land to community housing providers.

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