Submission on Compulsory Rent Deduction for Social Housing Tenants
ERA has recently made this submission on a proposed scheme of compulsory rent deduction for social housing tenants contained within the Social Service Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017.
ERA supports the objective to reduce evictions from public housing into homelessness. It is clear a response is needed to this critical issue – any eviction into homelessness is one too many. We are deeply concerned that the compulsory diversion of income at the request of a social housing lessor proposed in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability Bill) is overreach, will produce unintended consequences and highlights the limited body of evidence and publicly available data on public housing evictions needed to formulate and target effective public policy responses.