HOME-OWNING ISSUES
AFFORDABLE housing raises its mystical head every few years as part of election promises only to evaporate the moment elections are won or lost.
Affordable housing is little more than a figment of the imagination, today in reality, it does not exist and for many it has never existed. The assumption that everyone wants to own a house is absolute
nonsense with politicians falling over themselves to lure vulnerable people into a situation where they will certainly not be able to meet their commitments when interest rates rise, as of course they must.
We are an itinerant population (average turnover of our homes every six years) coupled with a general era of non-responsibility where fault always lays with others like the boss, your employer, the law, the government, your fellow employees but never with yourself. With home ownership you enter an era of total responsibility.
There is a realisation by governments in most advanced countries that there needs to be a certain ratio of state owned rental accommodation, to single unit home ownership properties. Many people spend their entire lives, from birth to death, in these government sponsored rental accommodation.
We in Australia have been spoilt and fortunate in as much as we have enabled our cities to expand outwards simultaneously bringing services such as sewage, water, electricity roads and other community services to these new developments. Unfortunately, this continuing expansion will no longer be possible as land/ development costs together with actual building costs, will make the ownership of one house per block unattainable to a large portion of our middle-income working population. Additional transport costs will make further outward expansion unviable.
There is a need now to further expand individual existing housing on 600 + sqm blocks in existing precincts, buildings must project both outwards and upwards to accommodate 2-4 or more accommodations.
It is incumbent on all governments to provide the fundamentals of life, that of food and shelter to all its peoples. How they go about achieving these aims is up to them; it is up to us to remind governments of their obligations at the ballot box.
Bryan Peach, Cairns