May 16, 2026 · 51 min · 19 segments
It’s not the same as social housing, and it doesn’t help those most in need. Australia is spending big on ‘affordable’ housing—but we shouldn’t. In “Against ‘Affordable’ Housing”, Dom Behrens and…
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I think the most important thing to do to start is to get our definitions straight.
I think it's really important to nail down this definitional issue for, for two main reasons.
Uh, I think the first reason is that the politicians often would like you to think that they are the same thing, and they like to conflate it.
You know, you, you will so often hear politicians talking about we need social and affordable housing, or we need, uh, w- uh, sort of linking these two things as if they're one and the same and they're the same concept, but they're really not.
And the reason why it's so important that we don't let the politicians get away with that conflation is that they are targeted at very different groups of people, very different groups of people live in them, and they're sort of provided in a very different way.
Um, so probably first of all, it might be good just to define exactly what social housing is, which is it's government, uh, subsidized housing.
Uh, so public housing is run by the government, owned by the government, and it's leased out to people at, uh, a share of their income, about usually about thirty percent to people on very low incomes.
And so the eligibility criteria for public housing, if you're able t- if you're eligible to live in one of, uh, these units, you're, you're truly vulnerable and you're on a very low income and you would really struggle to afford any housing at all without this support.
Um, community housing is a similar sort of thing to public housing, but it's operated by a community housing provider, which is a nonprofit that owns and manages these units, finds tenants, does the maintenance, uh, rather than the government itself.
And so together, you hear public and community housing referred to as social housing.
It's an important part of our social safety net, and for a, a lot of people, it's, it's, uh, the only way that they're gonna be able to afford to live in our cities.
Affordable housing is still subsidized housing, but it's explicitly targeted at moderate ear- income earners, so people who often have, uh, much higher incomes and wouldn't be eligible for, for social or public housing.
I think the most important thing to do to start is to get our definitions straight.
I think it's really important to nail down this definitional issue for, for two main reasons.
Uh, I think the first reason is that the politicians often would like you to think that they are the same thing, and they like to conflate it.
You know, you, you will so often hear politicians talking about we need social and affordable housing, or we need, uh, w- uh, sort of linking these two things as if they're one and the same and they're the same concept, but they're really not.
And the reason why it's so important that we don't let the politicians get away with that conflation is that they are targeted at very different groups of people, very different groups of people live in them, and they're sort of provided in a very different way.
Um, so probably first of all, it might be good just to define exactly what social housing is, which is it's government, uh, subsidized housing.
Uh, so public housing is run by the government, owned by the government, and it's leased out to people at, uh, a share of their income, about usually about thirty percent to people on very low incomes.
And so the eligibility criteria for public housing, if you're able t- if you're eligible to live in one of, uh, these units, you're, you're truly vulnerable and you're on a very low income and you would really struggle to afford any housing at all without this support.
Um, community housing is a similar sort of thing to public housing, but it's operated by a community housing provider, which is a nonprofit that owns and manages these units, finds tenants, does the maintenance, uh, rather than the government itself.
And so together, you hear public and community housing referred to as social housing.
It's an important part of our social safety net, and for a, a lot of people, it's, it's, uh, the only way that they're gonna be able to afford to live in our cities.
Affordable housing is still subsidized housing, but it's explicitly targeted at moderate ear- income earners, so people who often have, uh, much higher incomes and wouldn't be eligible for, for social or public housing.
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