Amanda Winks, CEO, Housing Trust
From post war nation building to today’s housing pressures, the Illawarra’s story shows why housing matters – and why momentum building across local, state and federal levels offers real hope for change.
It’s almost my Grandad Noel’s birthday as I write this. If he were still here, he’d be turning 103.
My grandparents raised their family just down the street from where my husband and I are now raising ours, here in the Illawarra. The original house is long gone, but the sense of place isn’t. Nor is the reassurance that comes from belonging somewhere.
That continuity has me thinking across three generations: my grandad, who grew up during the Great Depression and came of age in the Second World War; my dad; and now my own children. When you look across a century of family life, one lesson keeps resurfacing.
Housing matters. It shapes opportunity, stability and wellbeing in ways we often only fully appreciate when it starts to disappear.
Here in the Illawarra, housing has always been central to community life. From workers’ cottages clustered around the steelworks and the mines, to today’s apartments and infill developments, our region’s story is written in the homes people have been able, or unable, to hold onto.
That local story now plays out on a national stage. Public debate swings between nostalgia for the post war housing boom and frustration with today’s housing crisis. Somewhere between those two emotions sits a practical question: what can we learn from history to build a modern housing system that works – one where social and affordable rental homes are truly embedded as part of everyday communities?
After the Second World War, Australia treated housing as essential infrastructure. The Commonwealth–State Housing Agreement of 1945 financed large scale rental housing delivered by the states. Those homes supported returning service people, enabled workforce growth and underpinned post war prosperity. They weren’t seen as welfare. They were seen as nation building.
Three lessons from that era still matter today.
First, scale matters. Social housing only shapes the broader system when it’s delivered in meaningful volume. Second, integration matters. Mixed neighbourhoods reduce stigma and strengthen communities. Third, staying power matters. Housing policy only succeeds with long‑term commitment across election cycles and levels of government.
Over time, those lessons were gradually lost. Policy drifted back towards home ownership. By the 1970s and 80s, social housing had become tightly targeted to the lowest incomes. Supply stalled. Stigma grew.
We’re still living with the consequences: long waitlists, rising rents, and workers who keep our local economy running, teachers, nurses, retail and hospitality workers – struggling to find secure homes near their jobs, schools and families.
Social rental housing now makes up around 4 percent of Australia’s total housing stock, against the OECD average of about 7 percent. That imbalance shows up in very real ways here in the Illawarra.
After decades of drift, history is no longer just something to reflect on – it’s something we must respond to. And there is a change in inertia. The settings are shifting.
At the federal level, the Housing Australia Future Fund signals a renewed focus on delivery at scale. At the state level, the Homes for NSW Strategy commits to treating social housing as essential infrastructure, guided by a rights based, human centered approach and backed by strong investment. Our councils are increasingly focused on local housing strategies that recognise the availability of affordable rental homes as imperative to strong community and economic outcomes. The emphasis is shifting away from social and affordable housing as an exception, and towards its place within established centres and neighbourhoods.
This is where delivery meets policy. Crucially, these shifts are being matched by strong capacity on the ground. Community housing providers, deeply embedded in local communities, have shown that when the settings are right, they can work alongside all levels of government to deliver social and affordable homes at scale, manage them for the long term, and ensure public investment continues to benefit communities well into the future.
And all this work, across every level of government and in every local community, really matters. Because when social and affordable housing is deliberately planned for and delivered well, communities are stronger, workforces more stable, and neighbourhoods more resilient — now and into the future. I hope that future generations look back to this defining moment in time with gratitude.
