g'day @Fact Finder. with thanks for your post mate.
"Further heralding the end of public housing was the emergence of economic rationalism in the 1960 and 1970s. Replacing the post-War Keynesian idea that government intervention in the housing markets was a necessary virtue, public opinion was swaying to the neoliberal idea that government intervention by the way of public housing was one of the causes of the problem.[44] This idea was helped along by the 1975 Royal Commission into Poverty that claimed that “Of the total 183,000 housing authority tenants the total poor numbered only 51,000; 132,000 housing commission rented dwellings (72%) were occupied by people with incomes more than 120% of the poverty line”." from your wiki link with thanks FF.
like all young families in the 40/50/60s my parents started in shared accom in a private house, mum boarded in a room with 2 kids and another on the way. we then moved to her parents place until succeeding in getting a housing comm flat, which we shared with cockroaches and rodents. (its how I became a ratbag).
a few years later and my father won a case against his employer for an injury which resulted in osteomyelitis and long stays in hospital on high doses of antibiotic for months at a time. the payout came after more years sharing my grandparents home but finally enabled an application for a war service loan and a new home built in a very cheap land. I think the house build was around $20k (it was a bit flash) and the land next to nothing in cost.
Menzies home building program presented massive opportunities for people to live in their own place, and the housing commission became a mainstay for the lowest paid, but resulted in poor neighbourhoods which damaged the reputation of such new burbs.
those were boom times for the economy. but the neoliberal ideology which took over the Lib party with the emphasis on "personal responsibility" and destroyed the building of homes for the poor. and what was the consequence? the economy flattened deliberately by the neolib leadership, primarily Abbott. wages constrained and housing builds all in private development. no low cost accomodation built between 2013 and 2020.
imo this is what has really caused the current crisis. too much focus on providing homes for middle to wealthy buyers and zero attention to the poor has resulted in worsening homelessness and poverty.
