Double rent assistance

The budget outlay was about 4.4 billion in 2019. The doubling of rent assistance to 8.8 billion would still be less than many other benefits.

There is the pension, unemployment benefits, family tax benefits, and the national disability insurance scheme. All of them more expensive, and in some cases, far more expensive than a doubling of rent assistance.

This would almost hold true even if rent assistance was tripled. Only unemployment benefits would cost the government less than rent assistance tripled.

Given the importance of housing, it is a concern the government has not doubled rent assistance. Nor have they adequately expanded it to people not on government benefits. People, nonetheless, with a low income that still need help.

Increased rent assistance would mean that many properties would become affordable overnight. It means people could afford to move to better suburbs, better jobs, better schools and a better life.

There are stories on the housing affordability crisis across the world. One can find articles on the crisis in Australia, NZ, America, Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and more.

So, what is it going to take for countries to ensure affordable housing for everyone?

No one is arguing that boosting rent assistance is the only thing that will need to be done. It is something that can be done, however, and something that should be done.

There are not many countries, if any, that are building enough affordable housing. When they do build them {or try to} they can come up against the not in my backyard group. The people opposed to development within their self-proclaimed kingdoms.

So, simply arguing that governments should just build enough social housing, is not going to work.

What is it going to take for the government to boost Commonwealth rent assistance?

Can we agree that it should not take a pandemic to boost generosity? We have seen that with government increasing things like unemployment benefits, during COVID-19. By the way, the doubling of unemployment benefits still means many properties are unaffordable.