Social housing is the only form of housing that guarantees affordability for very low income households, with rents capped at 25–30 per cent of income regardless of movements in the private market. At scale, it also relieves pressure on the private rental market more broadly.
Overall, the availability of social housing stock in Australia has been in decline since the late 20th Century. Currently the proportion is 4.0%, down from 5.8% at the turn of the century.
It hasn’t always been this way. Between 1945 and 1970, new social housing properties averaged 16% of total national residential construction. But from 1996, base funding for social housing construction was cut by 24% and the rate of new social housing builds fell to 3%. In 2025, there are 452,000 social housing dwellings. Over the past several decades the number of social housing properties has failed to keep up with population growth and demand. Social housing stock grown from approximately 406,600 in 2006 to 452,000 in 2025, representing a growth of approximately 11.2%, compared to an approximately 32.4% in the Australian population.
This is not the way in other countries. Compared to other OECD countries, our proportion of 4.0% is low compared to the Netherlands’ proportion of 37.7%, Denmark’s proportion of 21.2%, Austria’s proportion of 20%, and even the United Kingdom’s proportion of 16.9%. It is more comparable to the United States’ proportion of 3.3%.
The current state of Commonwealth investment in public housing has been described as a ‘starvation ration’. Successive investment strategies have been trialled, yet they have not generated housing construction at the scale required. New supply has consistently lagged behind the loss of dwellings through sales to private owners and the demolition of ageing stock. States and territories lament the lack of Commonwealth investment, while the federal government blame the lack of supply on the opaque and ineffective way states and territories spend their funding. Community Housing Industry Association estimates a shortfall of 641,000 social housing stock in 2021 and expected to grow to 942,000 by 2041.
Per Capita’s submission to the Inquiry into Social Housing explores alternative housing models and examines the impact of social housing on inequality.