Quick facts
- In 2018–19, there were around 797,100 occupants in Australia’s 3 main social housing programs (public housing, state owned and managed Indigenous housing (SOMIH) and community housing).
- The majority (72%) of social housing occupants were in public housing.
- At 30 June 2019, there were 415,100 households in the main social housing programs in Australia, increasing from 378,600 at 30 June 2008.
- The number of households in community housing has more than doubled (up 157%) from around 35,000 in 2008 to 90,000 in 2019; some of this growth is related to the transfer of public housing dwellings to community housing.
- Over 4 in 10 (43%) households in public housing had been in their tenancies for 10 years or more.
- The proportion of households living in social housing in Australia decreased from 4.7% in 2010 to 4.3% in 2019.
Occupants in social housing
The term ‘Occupants’ refers to all those living in social housing programs (sometimes also referred to as tenants). The following presents data on people living in public housing, SOMIH and community housing; data for Indigenous community housing were not available.
In 2018–19, there were around 797,100 people living in Australia’s 3 main social housing programs: public housing, state owned and managed Indigenous housing (SOMIH) and community housing (complete data were not available for all programs in Queensland and the Northern Territory).
Of the social housing occupants in 2018–19:
- 72% were in public housing (around 576,400 people)
- 21% were in community housing (around 170,100 people)
- 6% were in SOMIH (around 50,600 people) (Supplementary table OCCUPANTS.1).
The number of occupants living in social housing in Australia increased between 2014 and 2016 from 805,000 to 820,400 after which it declined to 797,100 in 2019.
The location of social housing occupants across the states and territories has been relatively consistent over time, with 33% living in New South Wales, 19% in Victoria and 17% in Queensland. Considering the individual social housing programs, there have been some notable changes over time. The proportion of occupants in community housing living in Victoria has decreased from 24% to 15% from 2014 to 2019. Western Australia has had a similar decline in occupants living in community housing, from 12% to 8% over this period.
Age and sex of occupants
Females continued to make up the majority of all occupants across the 3 main social housing programs. In 2018–2019, there were 318,800 females (56%) in public housing, 27,900 (55%) in SOMIH and 93,300 (56%) in community housing.
Key differences in the age profile of public and community housing include:
- The public housing program had an older age profile than community housing, with 35% of occupants aged 55 years and over compared with 31%, respectively.
- A larger proportion of public housing occupants (22%) were children aged under 15 years compared with community housing (20%).
- Across the other age groups, community housing had a higher proportion of occupants (48%) aged 15–54 compared with public housing (43%).
The SOMIH program had a different age profile from the other two programs, with half of occupants (49%) aged under 25 and around a third (32%) of all SOMIH household members were aged 0–14. There were 32% of SOMIH occupants aged 25–49 years and 19% aged over 50 (Figure OCCUPANTS.1).