Older people, renters, women, people with disabilities are among those most vulnerable to be hit hardest by Australia’s current housing crisis. What seems to have been lacking are practical ways to address problems and to alleviate the stresses especially felt by vulnerable Australians in this space.
Adam Davey, CEO of the Winston Churchill Trust highlighted the four Churchill Fellows recently returned from their Fellowships about housing for the vulnerable, saying:
“We know Australia is experiencing a housing affordability crisis, and for vulnerable people in our community they feel it most. Australia needs practical ideas and solutions now to ensure there are suitable housing options,”
“Governments of all levels are looking for solutions. To find solutions, they just need to ask a Churchill Fellow: ‘How do we fix this? How can we learn from overseas?’ And they’ll get answers and ideas they might not have considered or even heard of.” said Mr Davey.
Recently returned Churchill Fellows have been to nine different nations and researched alternative and best practice housing models for women, older people, renters and people living with a disability.
Dr Victoria Cornell explored how and why alternative housing models for older people overseas are successful, and how they could be implemented in Australia. She saw first-hand solutions in Denmark, Germany, Japan, Singapore and USA.
Joel Dignam travelled to New Zealand, UK and USA to learn how to best build an organisation to grow the power of renters to advocate for social change.
Jennifer Kulas investigated innovative housing models for women in Austria, France, Netherlands, Switzerland and UK.
Kim Samuel learned first-hand from the US and Israel about best-practice communities and housing that support people living with a disability.
Mr Davey said “Churchill Fellows are passionate and willing to share, with fresh knowledge and the highest level of expertise,”
“These Fellows have collaborated with experts across several countries and have returned with solid knowledge about how to design and implement social housing, affordable housing and organising renters to advocate for improved rights,”
“That’s why Churchill Fellows go around the world to learn about better ways of doing things, and to bring back real and practical solutions that are working now in other countries that we can adopt in Australia,” said Mr Davey.
