Housing

AHURI has published a report from the Inquiry "Housing aspirations and constraints for lower income Australians".  AHURI Final Report No. 318's focus is on young Australians and the housing aspirations gap. This research investigates the short and longer term housing aspirations and the housing aspirations gap among ‘emerging adults’ aged 18–24 years and ‘early adults’ aged 25–34 years in order to better understand how they are linked to aspirations across areas such as education, employment and family formation. To download the report visit AHURI's website - click here.

The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has released its May 2018 Report into increasing affordable housing supply in Australia. This has significant importance for migrants and refugees settling in Australia, some of whom are among the most vulnerable to the pressures of the housing market. This study examined the range of strategies and initiatives governments have used to leverage affordable housing supply across the continuum of housing needs (i.e. from social housing to affordable rental and home ownership) in a constrained funding and increasingly market driven context across a range of different jurisdictions and markets. Read the report here.  

Access to suitable and sustainable housing is becoming an increasingly challenging issue in Australia. While this affects broad groups across the country, new arrivals face more hurdles than most when it comes to accessing housing. These hurdles include a number of factors such as a lack of understanding of Australian systems, lack of English, low income and insecure visa status. We find that these factors lead new arrivals to live in precarious housing situations. This is a growing concern, as not having access to appropriate housing impacts on many areas of life including health, employment, community participation, education and training and inevitably stifles new arrivals’ settlement prospects. Despite these obstacles, settlement agencies have been able to overcome some of the barriers to accessing adequate housing for new arrivals by seeking and implementing creative solutions. We have heard about countless examples of new arrivals attaining secure long-term housing across Australia through the tireless and innovative support of settlement agencies. Read our briefing paper on Housing for more information.

This report explores various aspects of service delivery to migrant women who have been living in Australia for at least five years. It documents the nature and types of service available, and identifies best practice principles and key service gaps in service delivery for migrant and refugee women. This report also outlines key priorities for addressing these service gaps.

View the report here.

The NSW Settlement Partnership recently launched the report "In Focus" an overview of the Partnership and its amazing work across New South Wales. To access the report and read about some of the work of the NSP, click here.

Ensuring that refugees have access to long-term sustainable housing is a growing issue in resettlement countries such as Australia. In this peer reviewed report by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the authors share the findings of a three-year research project, which began in 2012 and focuses on the housing, homelessness, neighbourhood and broader social inclusion experiences of refugees in Perth and Melbourne.  

The Department of Social Services (DSS) has prepared a comprehensive information booklet detailing key information for those building their lives in Australia. The booklet provides helpful settlement information, including links to other resources, for people who have recently come to Australia and people who are helping them. Available on the DSS website in over 20 languages, the book is of great value and highly recommended.

The Building a New Life in Australia project is a longitudinal study of refugees in Australia and maps their experiences over a series of years. This study is being undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, with information collected by Colmar Brunton Social Research. The project is commissioned and funded by the Department of Social Services.

Building a New Life in Australia aims to identify factors that impact the settlement of humanitarian migrants in Australia, in the hope that it will help improve policy development and program delivery for Australia's settlement sector.

In 2017, the AIFS will be releasing its first comprehensive release of the study's findings.

For more information, visit the project, here.