The Queensland government has announced it is “open for business” and seeking to buy homes exiting the National Rental Affordability Scheme.
Addressing the Queensland media club on Wednesday, the state’s housing minister, Meaghan Scanlon, said a “gaping hole” had been left by the removal of 10,000 affordable homes operating within the NRAS in the state.
The NRAS was set up by the Rudd government in 2008, and paid property owners a subsidy if they kept rents on new homes at a cheaper rate for a decade.
Scanlon said the government was opening expressions of interest for landlords to approach the government about buying some of the 4,841 properties set to exit the NRAS by mid-2025.
The homes bought by the government will become social or affordable housing after consultation with community housing providers.
“We would encourage anyone who’s willing to sell to us to come to government, and we are keen to purchase those homes,” she said.
“We anticipate there will be enough take-up to deliver a significant boost to the housing stock.”
Scanlon said the government had already bought up to 456 homes that were exiting the NRAS after being approached by community housing providers who sought funding through the Housing Investment Fund.
The government has not allocated a budget for the purchase of the NRAS homes and says the money spent will depend on the expressions of interest they receive.
Previous experience has shown about 30% of landlords were interested in selling, Scanlon said. A similar take-up rate could see a further 1,452 Queensland homes sold to the government.
In cases where the government is not able to buy homes from NRAS, they would seek to provide departing tenants with social housing or other supports, Scanlon said.
Executive director of Q Shelter, Fiona Caniglia, said many NRAS tenants were living in “fear and distress” due to uncertainty about their future living arrangements.
“Q Shelter hopes NRAS owners will consider selling their properties to the state so that those households have security and affordability,” she said in a statement.
“This is why the future delivery of affordable housing must avoid fixed-term subsidies because eventually those households will face a cliff.”
At the media club, Scanlon was also asked about the income threshold limits for social housing which are vastly lower than other Australian states and have not been assessed for almost two decades.
The government announced in August it would review the income threshold limits.
Scanlon said the government would hope to release the results of the review either late this year or in early 2024.
“I thought that it would be a simple answer, but I’m told that takes quite a bit of work to move through what that threshold should look like,” she said.
In April, Guardian Australia reported the story of the Orlandos – a family that had fallen through the cracks and could not access social housing after they were evicted from their NRAS home.
The family struggled to find a rental and had no income or assets other than Centrelink, but were told they were not eligible for social housing as their income was more than $877 a week before tax.
