This AHURI Inquiry investigates the prospects for transforming Australia’s straitened social housing sector into a system for socially supported housing pathways. Leaving aside increased social housing supply, the Inquiry will focus on identifying opportunities for aligning assistance with people’s housing aspirations, managing access for greater responsiveness, improving support within and out of social housing, and providing all stakeholders in the system – applicants, tenants, landlords, funders and the wider Australian public – with appropriate expectations and assurances about its outcomes.

The Inquiry will comprise four Inquiry research projects (IRPs):

A.           Social housing pathways by policy co-design: opportunities for tenant participation in system innovation. This project (i) examines global best practice for tenant inclusion in social housing/housing assistance policy development; (ii) develops new analysis of social housing tenant and low-income households’ housing outcome aspirations, support needs, and access experience; (iii) to deliver an actionable evidenced-based pathway for increasing opportunities for policy co-design.

B.           Getting off the waiting list? Changing access to housing assistance. This project investigates prospects for improving on social housing applications and the waiting list as the primary mediators of access to housing assistance. It analyses waiting list dynamics, applicant and agency representative perspectives on waiting and alternative forms of assistance, and the implications of rights-based approaches to housing assistance entitlements.

C.           Better support for clients with complex needs: the role of housing providers. This project will examine the role of social housing providers and other services in supporting people with complex support needs; identify proven or promising interventions and initiatives, and options for taking to scale; and analyse the potential for service models from other sectors to be adopted in housing support.

D.           The role of outcomes-based frameworks in policy innovation in social housing provision. This project combines a detailed synthesis of the available policy evidence and targeted qualitative research with key stakeholders in three states to explore how outcomes measurement and outcomes-based frameworks may be more effectively implemented to support the delivery of innovative housing assistance and support programs.