Rental-Insights-A-COVID-19-Collection - Flipbook - Page 47
RENTAL INSIGHTS:
A COVID-19 COLLECTION
• Second, governments need to
demonstrate a hitherto unknown
agility in responding to adverse
events such as COVID-19 or a
summer of bushfires. This agility
is only possible if the necessary
infrastructure—data, equipment,
financial and human resourcing
—is in place to deliver services
and supports where needed. The
capacity of governments to respond
in a coordinated and effective way in
Australia has been tested and sectors
with infrastructure and personnel
in place have been the most agile
responders (e.g. the success of
contact tracing in NSW reflecting
decades of greater investment in
public health infrastructure).
• Third, housing and the sense of
being ‘home’ is critical in a time of
crisis to our wellbeing and financial
security. The truth of this is clearly
visible in our rental stories. For some
who have remained in work and have
the benefit of spacious housing, the
pandemic represented a respite from
daily commuting, the opportunity to
reconnect with family and increased
leisure time. For others, the same
lockdowns were associated with a
sense of social isolation, increased
financial stress and potential new
frictions within personal relationships.
• Fourth, the ‘Black Summer’ of
2019–20, as well as the impacts of
the COVID-19 pandemic, have forced
Australians to rethink their housing
and to put aside—temporarily at
least—the national obsession with
making wealth through the property
market. As a nation we have been
forced to acknowledge that our
housing is a key piece of health
infrastructure. Our homes offer us a
degree of protection from the ravages
of bushfire, the insidious danger of
smoke, and the airborne particulates
it carries, as well as a safe haven from
the unseen threat of viruses.
These insights have been hard-earned
and have come at considerable cost
for many Australians. The crises that
have confronted Australia over the past
year have shown up the inadequacies
of a system of housing supply woefully
unable to replace homes lost in fires,
the inability of many suburban and
urban homes to provide safe shelter
during the COVID-19 crisis, and the
on-going crisis of unaffordable housing
in Australia’s cities and regions. Why is
this the case? Australia does not have
a national housing policy and there is
little integration of our housing and
health policies, unlike New Zealand
(Healthy Homes Standards 2019), the
United States (Report to Congress
and Surgeon General’s Call to Action)
and England (Housing and Health
Rating System). There are clear
positive benefits of doing so. Nations
such as New Zealand where a healthy
housing agenda has been embraced
have better developed systems for
monitoring how well the housing stock
is performing with respect to providing
protection against cold and providing
neighbourhoods that support the
development of future generations.
As the 21st Century matures into its
third decade, all Australians increasingly
recognise that we are living in an
environment that is marked by greater
risks, many of which we have created
for ourselves. These risks cannot
be removed, but they can be better
managed—to reduce their impact on the
population as a whole, to provide surety
to vulnerable populations, and to help
provide a pathway to a more productive
and prosperous future—one marked by
higher levels of health and wellbeing.
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Better management of risks and more
effective responses to challenges such
as COVID-19 calls for better information
systems. We need to find better ways
to monitor the housing environment
in much the same way we increasingly
monitor our physical environment in
order to ensure the health of our rivers,
the productivity of our farming regions,
and the strength of our biodiversity.
Increased investment in data collection
and real-time surveillance of changing
conditions is one of Australia’s needs,
but at the same time we need to boost
our capacity to analyse data, create
policy-relevant knowledge, and equip
policy makers with the tools they need
to make better decisions.
Both formal media commentators
and social media talk about the ‘new
normal’ that has arisen, and will emerge
more fully, in the wake of COVID-19.
Such discussion recognises that this
point in time represents a significant
disjuncture—akin to the Spanish
influenza—in contemporary history.
As such, we need to embrace the
opportunity to make changes now
that produce a better future for all.
Now is the time to act, and our first
steps must include:
• the development of systems
and processes for the on-going
monitoring of how Australians are
faring in the rental market
• the creation of better methods for the
translation of research findings into
policy action, and
• new ways of sharing research
outcomes with the wider community,
including new forms of citizen social
science that seeks to both inform and
mobilise our fellow Australians.
• the adoption of a healthy housing
agenda in Australia so that we are
prepared for economic and health
shocks into the future.
Better management of risks and more effective
responses to challenges such as COVID-19
calls for better information systems.
