Housing Choices Australia Group - Annual Report 2020

Housing Choices Australia Group - Annual Report 2020

 

  

Housing Choices Australia is a member organisation of the Community Housing Industry Association and PowerHousing Australia.

We acknowledge the financial and other support of:

The Australian Federal Government The Victorian State Government The South Australian State Government The Western Australian State Government The Tasmanian State Government The New South Wales State Government

1.5 In the spirit of reconciliation, the Housing Choices Australia Group acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners of this country and their connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to them, their culture and customs, and to elders past, present and emerging.



  

 

 

                 



       

    

    

 





 

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Housing Choices Australia | Annual Report 2019-20



Housing Choices Australia Group (HCA) is an independent, national, not-for-profit housing provider that delivers high quality, accessible and aordable housing for people who struggle to find a suitable home in Australia’s challenging private rental market. We manage over 4,500 properties, and spent over $21 million on repairs and upgrades in the last financial year. We work with residents, government agencies, support service partners and community organisations to deliver good housing particularly suitable for people living on low incomes, and those living with a disability. We also work to create resilient, inclusive neighbourhoods across all our properties, providing residents with access to support services that will improve their health and wellbeing, and to opportunities that will improve their life circumstances. We are active members of all the leading peak and industry bodies in our sector, including the Community Housing Industry Association, PowerHousing Australia and the Australasian Housing Institute.

Responding eectively to the real and often changing needs of the residents who live in our homes and the families who populate our communities is the key to our success. So, the relationships they establish with us with, and with each other, are vital to our service delivery. Our annual Resident Satisfaction and regular Partners’ Surveys, provide critical feedback about what we are doing well and where we can improve, enabling us to adjust our services and build long-term working relationships with our residents, so we can continue to provide them with the stable accommodation they need, to live their best lives. We constantly strive for innovative housing solutions for our residents, based on real evidence, ensuring our service delivery is documented and evaluated so we can adapt our business to changing needs over time.

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Housing Choices Australia | Annual Report 2019-20

     

The pandemic has shown us the crucial importance of basic public services – including social housing. The community housing sector is positioned to assume a deeper relevance in Australia and economic restructuring will see the sector as a focus for stimulus and employment. But it will be new – in sheer scale, in funding and financing and in the quality of our initiatives, it will present opportunity of a rare kind. Housing Choices Australia is well positioned to respond to this environment. The Board of Directors reviewed its strategic direction to ensure the organisation has the capacity and capability to respond, innovate, deliver and govern in such a rapidly changing and challenging environment. Despite the challenges, Housing Choices has continued to deliver, and our positive impact is highlighted in this year’s annual report achievements. As always, there is considerable change to manage. Of particular note is the stepping down of Arthur Papakotsias after five years as Chair and of Director Saul Eslake. As a CEO who built a national not-for-profit himself, Arthur was ideally positioned to guide Housing Choices through its formative years. I thank them both for their significant contributions and warmly welcome Prof. Chris Leishman and Drew Beswick to the Board.

To our various strategic partners – state governments, developers, service providers, financiers and many others – I oer my sincere thanks. Housing Choices is a partnership-based organisation, which depends upon joint working arrangements of many kinds. In the next two to three years, we expect new and long-term strategic alliances and partnerships to emerge. Our residents are also engaged at all levels of the organisation. During the year, a highlight for me was ‘The Theory of Change’, focusing in detail on the nature and quality of services delivered to residents. Housing Choices’ achievements are measured in multiple ways and how our residents view us is especially critical. Our workforce continues to adapt and diversify, despite the challenges that were presented in the second half of this financial year due to the pandemic. My thanks to all for the commitment, energy, and skill demonstrated throughout the organisation and for the innovative way that sta engaged to support residents and each other through these challenging times. I am immensely proud of our sta and of our organisation. The past year has transitioned us to a new phase for Housing Choices. I am optimistic about our organisation’s ability to contribute to Australia’s social and economic recovery through the delivery of more, much needed, social and aordable housing.

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Housing Choices Australia | Annual Report 2019-20

    



As the Housing Choices Australia Group continues to evolve, we welcome experienced Director and former Deputy Chair, Heather McCallum to the Chair, and Fabienne Michaux as the new Deputy Chair. We will also be welcoming new Western Australia Directors David Lantzke and Matt Raison in the coming year as WA Member Company representatives. We also pay tribute to outgoing Chair, Arthur Papakotsias and Director, Saul Eslake and thank them for their tremendous contribution and support during their tenure. This year the world has been overshadowed by the risk posed by the COVID-19 epidemic. Within a matter of days after the Australian outbreak, the organisation moved into rapid response with project structures set in place to manage the associated risks for residents and for sta. Julie Duncan, General Manager of Housing Services (South Australia), was appointed COVID-19 Controller and a COVID Response support team was organised around her. The executive team met on a weekly basis to manage the risk, and sophisticated levels of co-operation across Housing Choices were quickly established to assess and mitigate risk. In the period following, we maintained regular contact with our residents, especially in Victoria where considerable attention was given to the welfare and wellbeing of residents and sta. The response of the organisation to this was outstanding and demonstrates both the values and the capability of Housing Choices. Near the end of the financial year, the final steps in the merger between Access Housing Australia in Western Australia and Housing Choices were taken, final approvals were agreed upon and an implementation date of 1 July 2020 was set.

This now takes the Housing Choices Australia Group into five States and more importantly, the combined capability of the two entities strengthens the ability of the merged organisation to provide more and better services to expand its response to housing needs. Notwithstanding limitations on funding, our development pipeline continued to increase the supply of accommodation. Spence on Light in the Adelaide Central Business District exemplifies our capability to provide outstanding, quality accommodation, work with partners in government and the private sector and establish partnerships with service providers. This time with the ACH Group providing aged care services to the site. The development is outstanding by any measure and illustrates the progressive building and quality standards in our property developments. Another highlight for the year was that in every state that Housing Choices operates, all regulatory standards were met and there were no issues reported by regulators in any of the jurisdictions. This is a testament to the professionalism of our sta throughout the organisation. As we proceed into the next phase of organisational development, a range of new structures, processes and capabilities are progressively and carefully being introduced into the organisation. This is deliberately positioning us for what we see as a new phase of opportunity. To our residents and sta, I would also like to acknowledge the positive results recorded in the resident and sta surveys throughout the year. We do not take these for granted and look forward to working with everyone in the year ahead.

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Housing Choices Australia | Annual Report 2019-20

 

 



  

     

He was the inaugural Chief Executive Ocer of Housing Choices Australia when it was founded in 2008 to 2012 and since 2014, he returned as Managing Director. Under his stewardship Housing Choices has grown to be one the largest housing associations in Australia. In the mid-2000s he led the establishment of the Glasgow Housing Association through the transfer of the largest volume of public housing stock in Europe. He served as Chief Executive Ocer of the Housing New Zealand Corporation. As Chair and Executive Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) he led its restructuring, leading to its status as the pre-eminent research resource for the housing industry in Australia. He has also led a significant government department in South Australia. He was Chair of national peak body, the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA), from 2016 to 2019, during which

Fabienne holds board, research and consulting roles across a number of sectors, with a focus on creating social impact and system change. Currently Fab is working with the United Nations Development Programme to develop Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) impact practice standards for enterprises and investors and co-chairing the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative’s Technical Working Group 3 on making better informed decisions. She is also a non-executive director of The Song Room and Impact Investing Australia and a Professor of Practice (Finance) at Deakin Business School. Fab’s experience also includes 22 years at S&P Global, one of the largest >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96

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