Not to force them together, which is one fear amid the current debate, but to incentivise investment at scale, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional, government-funded public housing.Institutions do back affordable housing. The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation has marshalled more than 60 domestic and international institutions to invest in bonds which support more than 16,000 affordable homes from community housing providers.
But such initiatives will not be enough to deliver the “industrial scale” of affordable and social housing required.The Community Housing Industry Association argues that despite the support of NHFIC, and other aids such as rate and tax rebates, planning concessions and land contributions, affordable housing faces “a funding gap”.
Andrew Purdon, CBRE’s regional director, Living Sectors-Capital Markets, adds that building cost inflation and rising interest rates aggravate the funding gap. The HBA would close the funding gap with a new, competitive, Commonwealth government subsidy and create a pool of affordable housing funds for institutional investment.
Conscious Investment Management was able to create its Social Housing Fund 1 by working with the Victorian government’s New Rental Development Program and not-for-profit HousingFirst.
Vulture funds do not make affordable housing