Affordable Housing

The Challenge

Melbourne is facing rapid population growth and a severe housing affordability crisis. Home purchase is among the least affordable in the world and there is an acute shortage of low-cost rental housing^1,2. House price growth has driven dramatic increases in wealth inequality in Australia in the last two decades as more affluent households benefited from increased property values while lower income households saw large increases in their rental and mortgage payments³. For low-income households, rising affordability stress constrains access to jobs and essential services, negatively impacts on physical and mental health, and increases the risk of homelessness⁴. The combined pressures of population growth, demographic change, sustainability imperatives and equity challenges are driving an urgent need to better understand and deliver affordable housing in Australia.

Melbourne Research Capability

The Affordable Housing Hallmark Research Initiative brings together researchers from architecture, urban planning, property economics, public health, geography, economics and sociology to acknowledge the complexity of housing systems and their role in supporting or inhibiting sustainability, social justice and economic stability.

We are building a critical mass of affordable housing scholarship to shape international academic debate and respond to contemporary housing problems.

Our research will facilitate cross-disciplinary connections and foster new and innovative collaborative research into the provision of quality housing: its design, planning, affordability, accessibility and use.

Our Plan

Our research in housing affordability will make a positive contribution to social inclusion and equity, addressing changing demographic patterns and furthering sustainable approaches to urban development.

Our mix of expertise and evidence is generating integrated solutions to identified and emerging problems of housing markets and social inequality, the quality and amenity of living environments, urban intensification and sustainability, and the management of growth.

Using internationally established formats such as Housing Expos, we can demonstrate what can be achieved, with the aim of affecting positive changes across the housing system.

Researchers will collaborate with government, industry, not-for-profit and community stakeholders to develop, evaluate and provide an evidence base for solutions to contemporary issues. Research outputs will be disseminated through publications, public events, workshops and research symposia.

The Affordable Housing Hallmark Research Initiative will also serve as a platform for promoting, generating and extending new and existing affordable housing scholarship at the University of Melbourne. We will host seed-funding rounds to support new research and inter-disciplinary partnerships.

[Banner image source: James Rafferty]

Initiative Chair 
& Design Innovation lens leader

1. Professor Alan Pert

   Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning

Academic Convenor

1. Dr Kate Raynor

   Melbourne School of Design

Markets and Policy lens leader

1. Dr Ilan Wiesel

   School of Geography

Health lens leader

1. Associate Professor Rebecca Bentley

   Melbourne School of Population and Global Health

Design Precedents lens leader

1. Professor Paul Walker

   Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning

[Banner image source: James Rafferty]

The Affordable Housing Hallmark Research Initiative will generate and support a wide range of research directly related to Affordable Housing across four themes.

[Banner images source: James Rafferty]

For more information about the Affordable Housing Hallmark Research Initiative, please contact

• Academic Convenor:  Dr Kate Raynor
  t. +61 3 903 54360  |  e. affordable-housing@unimelb.edu.au

OR, if you have questions or comments in relation to the Hallmark Research Initiatives program, please email: hallmark-initiatives@unimelb.edu.au

[Banner image source: James Rafferty]