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This article was first published by Ability News on April 16th 2025. Republished with permission. Read the original article here.
Finding a solution to the housing crisis will require some actual policy.
One of the problems with the housing debate so far is that it’s been relentlessly focused on home owners. For many people with disability buying a house is simply not an achievable goal. The problem with affordable housing is finding a place to rent.
A lack of supply of accessible housing simply compounds this problem.
Advocacy for Inclusion’s Craig Wallace is doubtful about the effectiveness of the political solutions being advocated by politicians.
What we really need is affordable public and social housing controlled by the community sector, tightly targeted at people on low incomes.
Craig Wallace
He also advocates assistance to people on medium incomes, but only those who “have significant barriers to entry because of lack of accessibility and affordability”. This is, of course, very different from the way both parties are targeting their policies.
Liberal and Labor are focused on appealing to swinging voters in marginal seats. This sees an increase in the total number of dwellings as the way of finding a solution to the housing crisis.
There is less concern about either accessibility or providing rental accommodation, although the current government has made a big play of its moves to increase the amount of social housing.
Wallace is, however, scathing.
People with disability are caught in a dual housing supply and affordability crisis. The National Housing and Homelessness Plan has not adequately prioritised this.
Craig Wallace
The Disability Royal Commission identified five major issues for People with Disability: tenancy insecurity; difficulties accessing social housing; difficulty finding physically accessible homes; poor response to high rates of homelessness among people with disability; and substandard housing and living conditions in supported boarding houses.
It found People with Disability experience poorer outcomes in key wellbeing areas due to insufficient and inaccessible core government interventions in health, housing and education.
This suggests a need for more government in the market, rather than less.
“There are minimal investments, outside the NDIS, to support the objectives for the Australian Disability Strategy and, in turn, the ACT’s disability strategies”, Wallace says. “Without targeted, earmarked funding for agreements within housing, health, and education, these strategies will not be realised, and outcomes will continue to worsen.”
In Australia between 2022 and 2023, approximately 25,900 or 9.5% of clients accessing Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) reported having a disability. Almost half of these (48%) were already homeless. Waiting lists for social housing often include at least one person with a disability.
Former Paralympian and Parramatta resident Janel Manns has been caught in exactly this sort of bureaucratic nightmare since mid-2022 while struggling to secure accessible housing.
After fleeing unsafe conditions in a regional town in Queensland due to abuse from a support worker, Janel was homeless for 12 months, couch-surfing and renting from friends before seeking Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) through the NDIS.
Despite providing a 100-page report, Janel says her application wasn’t reviewed within the participant guarantee timeframe. When it was eventually addressed eight months later she claims it was rejected.
Janel says she was told, “there are many alternatives for someone like you.” People with Disability Australia’s individual advocacy team challenged the NDIA’s decision.
Having now found accommodation with her daughter, Janel now says life is better now than it was. She is not, however, in accessible accommodation.
It seems neither party’s policy platform is likely to significantly address this issue.