Ten years ago The Big Issue created Homes for Homes to help house people who need it most. It’s taken long-term vision – and a whole lotta belief that together we can solve our housing crisis.
Home is where the heart is. It’s an escape from the outside world, or the freedom to open up and let it in. It’s somewhere to thrive, to dream or simply to sleep. A home can be easily taken for granted – if you’re safe and secure in a place of your own.
Aristea knows just how important it was to be given this kind of space. At the age of 11, she found herself in a tenuous living situation after her parents’ separation – with her mother and three siblings, they had to squeeze into a small private rental. It was overcrowded, and the family bonds suffered under the strain.
“For a lot of kids on the margins, you grow up really quickly, right?” Aristea explains. “In some ways, you are like an adult in a kid’s body. It’s a very sensitive time, when you want the most amount of privacy, and I had none whatsoever.”
Breathing room came in the form of not-for-profit Kids Under Cover, which works with young people at risk of homelessness. They built a free-standing spare bedroom in the backyard of the family’s public housing property. “When I got that space from my mum, our relationship improved a lot,” Aristea says today. “I’m not sure that we ever would have gotten to where we are now without the studio.” These studio spaces help empower young people to break the cycle of poverty, while staying close to their families where possible.
“We always came from a lower socio-economic background,” Aristea says, “and we’d had a lot of experiences with people not validating or believing our point of view at a time when we were struggling. So to have Kids Under Cover come in and meet us where we were at was really wonderful and affirming.”
Kids Under Cover is making a real difference, and like Habitat for Humanity, Anglicare and other Australian organisations making room for those in need, it benefits from the groundbreaking efforts of the Homes for Homes program. Now in its 10th year, Homes for Homes has been instrumental in funding life-changing projects that have provided homes for 400 people and counting.
The idea came from California, where in the mid-2000s large-scale property developer Lennar Corporation began making voluntary contributions of 0.1 per cent from each of the units they sold each year. That was around US$1000 per unit, and with tens of thousands of units sold each year, substantial sums were funnelled back into public and affordable housing.
“If you’ve ever been to California, it’s hard to ignore the rough sleeping challenges they face over there,” Homes for Homes chief operating officer Tracy Longo points out. Inspired by the US success story but setting its sights even higher, Homes for Homes was launched by The Big Issue in September 2015, with the aim to inspire Aussie homeowners, construction companies, real estate agents and “anyone in the property sector” to help end the housing crisis in Australia.
Under the scheme, homeowners register their property, pledging to donate 0.1 per cent of its eventual sale price to Homes for Homes. So, a $1 million sale equates to a $1000 tax-deductible donation. This is added to a pool of funds that is used to finance social and affordable housing projects across Australia. Like those built by Kids Under Cover.
To date, the social enterprise has granted almost $3 million to 28 projects across the country. But Longo is just as interested in the ripple effect these projects generate. “The way I see it, it’s not just the life of the individual who’s been given a home that changes,” she says. “It’s generational change that impacts the outcomes for people around them, too. It’s incredibly powerful when you’re able to change the trajectory for someone’s life by simply giving them what they need at the time they need it most.”
We know that housing ends homelessness, but the scale of the problem is daunting. More than 122,000 Australians are without a home each night, and another 1.26 million households are living in housing stress – spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent or mortgage payments. And with a critical shortfall of social housing, there are 640,000 households on the waiting list for an affordable home.
Longo believes that it will take the combined efforts of many motivated, connected movements to make a lasting impact, and Homes for Homes is taking the long view: seeking enduring rather than quick-fix solutions, and new brick-and-mortar sanctuaries rather than emergency triage options.
Longo outlines the need for a “healthy ecosystem”, with housing options existing on a continuum. “You’ve got social housing, affordable housing, private rental and then private ownership,” she says. “It’s really critical that those sectors are in harmony, and that those most vulnerable are given an opportunity to move through the system when they’re financially positioned to do so.”
The dream for Homes for Homes, as it ticks past its first decade, is to see the recipients of its projects grow into a position where they might give back themselves, signing up to pay 0.1 per cent forward – good housing karma incarnate!
“In time I would hope to see that,” Longo says. “In the next 10 years I’d love for [Homes for Homes] to get to the point when it’s just understood to be part of the buying and selling process in Australia, in the same way we talk about safety measures like wearing a seatbelt or a helmet.”
“With my background, I think from a very early age, I realised the power that advocacy actually has,” Aristea says. By the end of September, she will be admitted as a solicitor, working in criminal law – using the “talent for self-advocacy” that she discovered through securing her family that studio, and applying it for the benefit of others. Empowered by her own experience of finding the right housing at the right time, she can speak to the cracks she’s seen in the system.
“A lot of people who end up in front of the criminal justice system were victims first, who often didn’t have the adequate support that they needed when they were younger,” she reports, “and the rates of criminalisation in people who have experienced domestic violence as youth are sky high.”
Aristea says her family’s humble Kids Under Cover studio felt way bigger on the inside, providing her with a place to study, decompress or escape – without actually having to leave the family, and face an uncertain future alone. “It’s that step towards independence that’s actually prolonging childhood,” Aristea says of the young people who are granted their own studio spaces, “and it’s keeping them at home for longer.”
Today, she is a fierce critic of governmental neglect of public housing. “The reality is that there’s no viable alternative. You’re converting a system that helps working-class families, that supports migrants and domestic violence victims, and a lot of those people who would be appropriately placed in public housing are going to end up homeless.”
Longo feels the same, claiming that in a perfect world, her role at Homes for Homes would not exist. “But the reality is that there’s been under-investment in social, affordable housing for multiple years, and it can’t be solved by one organisation, one government. There has to be multiple levers and strategies, and Homes for Homes is one of those.”
Ten years in, the scope and impact of Homes for Homes continues to evolve, with renters now involved in the process, too – donating 0.1 per cent of their monthly rent. So too, the sale or lease of offices, retail outlets and factories.
With a number of projects in the works, one of the closest to Longo’s heart is The Cornelia Program, which gives at-risk women in Victoria the accommodation and specialised help to stay together with their newborn babies.
It sounds a million miles away from some kind soul selling their pile of bricks – but it’s not, Longo says. “We’re looking at how the entire community can be part of the solution, how we’re all able to link arms in support of this cause.
“It’s allowing us to grant funds across a diverse variety of different organisations,” says Longo. “We want to tackle long‑term outcomes for people who need housing. It’s seamless and it’s simple, but it goes a long way to making a difference for people on the margins.”
By Eliza Janssen, Staff Writer
Published in ed#747
Learn more about Homes for Homes, donate or register your property at homesforhomes.org.au
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