Vivian's new Sydney apartment caps rent at 30% of her income. Is this the way to tackle Australia's housing crisis?
The Boronia apartments in Sydney's fast-developing inner south have been purpose-built to house people in need of discounted rent – and are among the kinds of projects experts say Australia needs to solve its housing crisis.
Vivian Tran, 31, struggled to find a home for herself and her daughter, Lyla – private rentals were either snapped up before she could inspect them or outside her single-income budget. She was considering moving more than three hours north to Forster to live with her parents.
But after successfully applying for a Boronia apartment, she'll now be living just 20 minutes away from the childcare centre where she works as a manager.
'That was very exciting when I received [Boronia's] email,' she says. 'It'd be nice to have our own space and start fresh and really start living our lives a little bit.'
Low-income workers in care professions, older single women and others without homes or at risk of homelessness will be among those joining Tran in the five-storey complex.
The 74 homes range from studio apartments to three-bedroom flats, overlooking a leafy courtyard and enjoying sunlight throughout the day. They're designed to be accessible and able to be retrofitted with handrails to allow residents to stay long term as they age, according to Khoa Nguyen, a project architect at Turner Studios.
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'We're trying to design a place where you're proud to live,' Nguyen says.
A key reason residents are able to stay is the 30% cap on rents, designed to be well within household budgets.
For a worker with an after-tax income of $1,000 a week, or $52,000 annually, a two-bedroom apartment in blocks surrounding Boronia would cost their entire paycheck, data from realestate.com shows.
If that worker was approved for a similar apartment in Boronia, they may end up paying only $300 or so a week.
Other affordable housing systems might charge 75% of the market rate, which would see the worker spending $750 of their $1,000 weekly income on their home. Boronia's system is best practice, according to Michael Fotheringham, the managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
'When we talk about tackling the housing crisis, this is what it looks like,' Fotheringham says.
'That's 74 households that are able to actually have a more productive life,' he says. 'That's great. There are lots of other families that need it too.'
About 452,000 Australian households live in social housing units but as many as 640,000 more may need housing support, according to federal agency Housing Australia's May report.
The decade to 2024 saw the social housing stock rise by 24,000 nationwide, or 6%, the report found. But over the same period, there was a 66% rise in the number of people on public housing waitlists who had no home or were at risk of homelessness.
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Permanent discounted rentals are more difficult to fund than for-profit developments, according to Leonie King, the chief executive at Boronia's provider, City West Housing. Boronia cost $66m to buy land and build but its operation will bring ongoing costs.
'Our purpose is to house people,' King says.
'It's not the standard development model where you build and then you sell and then you recycle [the proceeds]. You've got money tied up … you've got people who want a long-term home.'
Dedicated social housing has fallen to just 4% of Australia's housing stock after construction slowed and old public housing was sold off, Housing Australia reported in May.
It recommended governments fund providers to restore social housing stock to 1990s levels of 6% of all homes in Australia, then to 10% in the long term.
The Albanese government's $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) is funding 20,000 social housing units in the five years to 2029. The Haff and separate housing accord commitments are also funding the construction of 20,000 homes classified as 'affordable' although that can include more expensive options.
Boronia and two other City West Housing projects secured funding from the Haff as well as state and local governments, allowing the provider to put money towards two more new developments.
The Haff has not opened further funding rounds and is not committed to taking on new projects after 2029, leaving City West Housing and other providers uncertain about taking on new projects.
'The issue is, you eventually run out of cash,' King says.
'We're going to get two projects to shovel-ready, and we think we'll be able to solve the funding issue, but there's a bit of a leap of faith.'
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