{"id":17029,"date":"2020-07-02T11:17:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T01:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/?p=17029"},"modified":"2020-11-30T13:09:37","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T02:09:37","slug":"money-for-social-housing-not-home-buyers-grants-is-the-key-to-construction-stimulus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/?p=17029","title":{"rendered":"Brendan Coates. Money for social housing, not home buyers’ grants, is the key to construction stimulus."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brendan Coates, Grattan Institute<\/a>. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Photo Dan Himbrechts\/AAP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no doubt Australia\u2019s construction industry is facing tough times. COVID-19 has caused migration to slow to a trickle. Some 2.6 million Australians have in the past two months either lost their jobs<\/a>, or had their hours cut. Many economists expect<\/a> property prices to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all adds up to reduced numbers of homes being built in the coming months. That means reduced jobs in the construction industry, which employs nearly one in 10 Australians. The sector has already lost nearly 7%<\/a> of its workforce since March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Morrison Government is set to anounce<\/a> a stimulus package for the construction sector as soon as this week. But what should it include?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why the focus of stimulus plans has to be construction putting social housing first<\/a><\/strong>.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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More home-buyer grants on the way<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The federal government has signalled it will offer cash grants of at least A$20,000 to buyers of newly built homes. Unlike past<\/a> schemes that have targeted first home buyers, it seems these new grants will be available to everyone including upsizers and investors. Grants may also be extended<\/a> to renovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large handouts would prompt some more residential construction by encouraging some people to bring forward their home purchases. It\u2019s why in 2008 the Rudd government tripled<\/a> the first home buyer grant to A$21,000 for new homes in response to the Global Financial Crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But under such schemes, governments also end up giving grants to people who would have bought a home anyway. Even the more pessimistic industry forecasts expect<\/a> 110,000 homes to be built in Australia next year. Giving A$20,000 to all of these home buyers would cost A$2.2 billion without adding a single construction job. Grants of A$40,000 would double the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a lot of spending for little economic gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor do grants to home buyers actually make housing more affordable. They are typically passed through into increased house prices<\/a>, benefitting sellers more than buyers. In this case, that is likely to include developers eager to clear their existing stock of both newly and nearly built homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The brutal truth on housing. Someone has to lose for first homebuyers to win<\/a>.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Cash grants for renovations would likely hit the economy quicker since they don\u2019t necessarily require building approvals. But they bring their own problems. Grants will likely see in-demand tradies raise their prices, especially if the government is effectively paying for most of the work done. It will be also be harder for officials administering the scheme to determine if the work has been done before paying out the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is it clear the renovation sector needs further stimulus: reports suggest COVID-19 is driving a renovation boom<\/a> across many parts of Australia. Research by credit bureau Illion and economic consultancy AlphaBeta shows spending on home improvements is already 33% higher<\/a> than pre-COVID levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a better option<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a better way to support residential construction without providing such big windfalls to developers: fund the building of more social housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social housing \u2013 where rents are typically capped<\/a> at no more than 30% of household income \u2013 provides a safety net to vulnerable Australians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, the Morrison government should repeat another GFC-era policy, the Social Housing Initiative<\/a>, under which 19,500 social housing units were built and another 80,000 refurbished over two years, at a cost of A$5.2 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the initiative the federal government funded the states to build social housing units directly or contract<\/a> community housing providers to act as housing developers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public residential construction approvals spiked<\/a> within months of the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Building 30,000 new social housing units today would cost between A$10 billion an A$15 billion<\/a>. Because state governments and community housing providers won\u2019t have to worry about finance, marketing and sales, they\u2019ll be able to get to work building homes much quicker than the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boost to the economy would be pretty immediate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as important, building social housing would also help tackle the growing scourge of homelessness. At the most recent Census (2016), more than 116,000 people<\/a> were homeless, up from 90,000 a decade earlier. COVID-19 has shown us that if we let people live in unhealthy conditions it can help spread disease \u2013 affecting everybody\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Coronavirus lays bare five big housing system flaws to be fixed<\/a>.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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The drivers of homelessness are complex. Nonetheless the best Australian evidence<\/a> and international experience<\/a> shows social housing substantially reduces tenants\u2019 risk of homelessness. But Australia\u2019s stagnating social housing stock means there is little \u201cflow\u201d of social housing available for people whose lives take a big turn for the worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding social housing won\u2019t boost house prices or provide windfalls for developers. It will do more to keep construction workers on the job, while also helping some of our most vulnerable Australians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendan Coates<\/a> Program Director Household Finances Grattan Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation <\/a><\/em>under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brendan Coates, Grattan Institute. Photo Dan Himbrechts\/AAP. There\u2019s no doubt Australia\u2019s construction industry is facing tough times. COVID-19 has caused migration to slow to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[44,36],"tags":[651,653,655,652,654],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17029"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17665,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17029\/revisions\/17665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}