Focus on housing

By Kirsty Moore, CEO, Indigenous Business Australia

Affordable housing continues to be a dilemma in Australia, expanding quickly from our major cities to regional locations. The impact is even greater on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who typically face an additional range of barriers including lower incomes, lower savings, and a lack of credit history.

What are the issues, how can we support a solution, and where are the innovations? These are the questions we explored with the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) last month.

A problem and a solution

Secure housing is critical to wellbeing. From financial security, to maximising education, and ensuring stable employment, housing is the lynchpin to a stable and flourishing life.

Through a research project with Deloitte Access Economics, we found that Indigenous Australians who own their homes feel safer, more positive about the future, and more engaged in work and school.

• 68% of our customers surveyed said they felt more focused at work
• 84% said they felt safer for themselves
• 87% said they were more confident about their future.

The report also showed a positive impact on the economy and the flow-on effects are good for all Australians. Supporting home ownership for people who would otherwise not have access, stimulates financial activity by injecting new funds into the economy, both at national and local levels.

The Deloitte research showed by 2018 our home ownership program had delivered almost $895 million in social and economic benefits since it was launched in 1975 – including reducing the reliance on rental assistance and costs in avoided homelessness. Read more about the report in The Guardian Labs: Building Communities .

Our work not only reduces government expenditure, but also helps free up social housing, making it accessible for others who would otherwise be facing homelessness.

It’s about creating intergenerational wealth – leading to better employment and education opportunities – and a whole new generation that sees home ownership as a possibility.

At IBA, we provide home loans to Indigenous Australians to enable them to enter home ownership when they would otherwise be unable to access finance from a mainstream bank due to barriers such as low incomes, low savings and lacking credit histories. By providing a home loan where others won’t, we are empowering the Indigenous community and that will ultimately support the national economy.

Last month IBA participated in CEDA’s insightful discussion on the future of housing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The hour-long panel session only touched on the debate into the realities of affordable housing, as part of a series called, Empowering First Nations People, hosted by CEDA and sponsored by IBA.

Dr Michael Fotheringham, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), facilitated the enlightened panel that discussed issues from health impacts to government change. A few of the insights included:

• "Safe and affordable housing is a human right," said Trish Rigby, Northern Land Council.
• "Success in life starts with a house," said Leeanne Caton, Yilli Housing.
• Jody Broun from Aboriginal Housing Office added that “one of the barriers to housing is supply”.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in home ownership. But we know that there are limits to our capacity to help because our resources are limited.

We have overwhelming demand from customers who are locked out of accessing mainstream lending options. In recent times, home ownership pressures for Indigenous Australians have been exacerbated by rising property prices which prevent first homeowners from accessing the market. 79% of IBA’s customers live in regional locations and, in the 12 months to Aug 2021, regional house prices rose by over 20% on average.

Opportunities ahead

We need to look at more than just home ownership and social housing, but affordable housing too and housing options across the full housing continuum.

The different parts of the housing sector need to come together in opportunities like this to ensure Indigenous Australians and their families can access safe and secure housing.

IBA has historically focussed on addressing demand by building capacity in potential customers through financial literacy and home ownership readiness support. This makes home ownership more achievable. However, that success in demand-side activities is contingent upon a reliable supply of suitable housing stock, particularly in regional locations where most of our customer live.

We are now looking at a strategy that encompasses BOTH supply and demand initiatives that would more broadly support Indigenous economic development growth.

Activating the Indigenous Estate (which covers about 51% of Australia’s land mass) will be critical to increasing appropriate and affordable housing supply, particularly in regional and remote locations. In addition to native title lands, Indigenous community housing providers and other Indigenous groups hold significant land and property assets with unmet potential for development or re-development.

By working with Indigenous organisations to activate their land for housing development, there is real opportunity to not only empower Indigenous communities to create appropriate housing for their own needs, but to improve housing for ALL Australians.

So, what does the future look like?

We will continue to seek non-traditional ways for our customers to overcome affordability issues and will support Commonwealth Government initiatives in this space such as the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

Thought leadership and advocacy for new ideas will inform future direction as will partnership opportunities where we leverage the capabilities of others – like our mainstream banking panel partnerships formed in late 2020 and with State and Territory governments.

Finally, we are keen to learn and understand more about the housing needs of Indigenous Australians into the future. We’ve commenced discussions with AHURI to explore a potential partnership to generate a greater focus on Indigenous housing informed by Indigenous demand.

There’s a lot of exciting work to be done! This is a practical call out to the Indigenous sector and all of us as its allies, to participate in conversations like the Indigenous series delivered by CEDA and supported by IBA to promote the economic and thought leadership contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I look forward to advancing this discussion today and well into the future.

Thank you to CEDA for giving space for this discussion and to my fellow panellists: Dr Michael Fotheringham, AHURI; Jody Broun, Aboriginal Housing Office and NSW Dept of Planning, Industry & Environment; Leeanne Caton, Yilli Housing; and Trish Rigby, Northern Land Council.

Find out more about IBA home loans at https://iba.gov.au/home-ownership/about-iba-home-loans/