Tom Elliott’s three ideas to improve the social housing system
Tom Elliott has provided three ideas to improve the social housing system:
- Five-year occupancy limits for the able-bodied
- Those capable of paying market rent should not occupy government-provided housing
- Sell blocks in prime locations (Richmond, Fitzroy, North Melbourne) to build more further out
‘The land would be worth billions,’ Tom said in relation to the third point.
‘That money could be better spent buying a lot more houses that would house a lot more people.’
Brendan Lyon, CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia agreed that selling off would be a good way to help the asset-rich but cash-stretched system.
Mr Lyon said the housing was appropriate 30-50 years ago, but less so today.
‘If we invested that money and got a commercial level of return, we’d be able to massively increase the amount of money per place,’ he said.
But he said a lot of the people living in inner-city housing require essential services and public transport that are nearby.
Click play for Tom’s editorial
Click play for the interview with Brendan Lyon