In November 2020, the Victorian Government announced their Big Housing Build and Regional Housing Fund, promising to invest $6.3 Billion in “modern, accessible and energy efficient homes for Victorians in need”. The initiative was widely welcomed by organisations across the nonprofit sector, who have at most paid lip service to the issues with its implementation. Inner Melbourne Community Legal are an exception, currently supporting the public housing tenants in the condemned North Melbourne and Flemington towers with a class action, arguing that Homes Vic did not follow proper process and their actions do not align with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. But the Big Build has wider implications. It maintains the capitalist housing market in order to maintain a system of wealth extraction via rent, and simultaneously abandons the most vulnerable in our community.

In so-called Australia, the phrase “housing crisis” is very much a part of the zeitgeist. Unsurprisingly, however, there is a plethora of articles and news stories intentionally obfuscating the root causes.

The crisis is not due to a physical shortage of properties. Rather, it is a series of intentional decisions by Governments to prioritise a system of private property over peoples’ basic human need for shelter, allowing landlords and corporations to continue to hoard housing and extract wealth from tenants via rent. In Melbourne alone we had 100,000 homes sitting vacant or underused in 2023 — enough to house those on the social housing register two times over. We have the resources available to end homelessness in Victoria today, but the Government chooses not to take the required measures.

This is an example of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organised abandonment” — the purposeful withholding of resources from certain communities by the State and/or by Capital. Despite being by design, our housing crisis has nevertheless put a lot of pressure on the federal and state governments. The Big Build acts as a pressure valve, preventing ‘too many’ people from becoming disgruntled from extreme housing insecurity. To leave the current situation as it is, the Government risks losing votes at the next election and being forced by the community into taking stronger measures, such as rent controls, vacant property taxes or a challenge to the system as a whole. In this way, the Big Build maintains the capitalist housing system of wealth extraction, protecting the assets of the owning class, while appearing benevolent to vulnerable and oppressed communities.

Nonprofit housing organisations are also participating in this organised abandonment. Social Housing in Victoria is made up of two categories, Public Housing and Community Housing. Public housing is run by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH), whereas community housing is run by large nonprofit organisations’ contracted by the Department — think of the Salvation Army or Vincent Care. While many new properties are being built, the contracts are going to nonprofit housing providers (hoarders) instead of being managed by the Department. These nonprofit organisations, rather than advocating for real housing justice, have taken up these contracts for their own financial gain and organisational growth.

The predatory behaviour from nonprofit housing organisations is shown for what it is in a couple of ways. Where renters in public housing have their rent set at 25 per cent of their income, nonprofit organisations set their rent at 30 per cent plus — often — rent assistance.

But the Government and nonprofits have now added a new category as part of the Big Build. So-called “affordable housing” has the rent set at no higher than 90 per cent of the market rate. If you head to Homes Vic’s listings you’ll find one-bedroom “affordable housing” properties for a minimum of $350 per week, about equal or higher than the rate of Jobseeker itself, which begs the question — affordable for whom? Tying rent not the tenant’s income but instead to the rental market also allows room for nonprofits to enact rent increases, making rent arrears, evictions and general financial insecurity much more likely.

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of nonprofits’ participation in the organised abandonment of the Big Build is their intentional circumventing of the social housing waitlist. When a property becomes vacant, public housing tenants must be chosen from the Victorian Housing Registry — the state’s social housing waitlist — whereas community housing providers also have the option for direct referrals. This means they are able shop around for what they consider a suitable tenant, either internally through client programs (many providers also run other programs) or externally through their relationships with other organisations. These generally look for people they consider “low needs”, overlooking those with substance dependence or mental health struggles, as well as the unemployed and the criminalised. They believe these tenants are more likely to cause issues such as neighbour disputes and property damage, and instead prioritise people with “strong independent living skills” and who are working or likely to find work (remember the 30 per cent rule — if your wages go up so does your rent). In this way, they strive to select tenants for whom they have to do the smallest amount of work, who do not pose a risk to their assets, and from which they will extract the most wealth.

Large nonprofits are not the only ones colluding with the Government. Smaller organisations relish the chance to have their own clients access housing, jumping the queue on the VHR waitlist that can be 15-20 years long. So, they partner with the large housing providers to get better outcomes for their own clients, which helps them advocate for more funding from the Government. They take their own contracts to service new community housing tenants — again, rather than advocating for real housing justice. As a result of this cherry picking of tenants by nonprofit organisations, the social housing waitlist is circumvented entirely and the most vulnerable and oppressed communities are delayed and shut out from secure, long-term housing they desperately need. Abandoned again.

Change is obviously not coming from the capitalist state. Change is not coming from the Government, who are overwhelmingly a part of the owning class. Out of 227 sitting federal MPs and senators, only twelve declared no property ownership. Nor is it coming from our organisations. Nonprofits are not sitting outside the system, but rather are a smokescreen within it, posing as being at odds with the worst abuses produced under capitalism, when in reality they are merely another cog in the machinery. The system is not “broken”. It functions exactly as intended, and it is invested — both metaphorically and materially — in preventing its own downfall.

For frontline housing workers, this is a call to action. We need to decide whether to have solidarity with our clients and the communities they come from, or whether we collude with our organisations in their abandonment. For those who reject the latter, it is time to get organised, to come together across the sector to pressure our organisations and hold them and the Victorian Government accountable. Banning direct referrals for housing vacancies and abolishing the so called ‘affordable housing’ category are just the first steps, an exercise in harm minimisation for the most oppressed, on the way to abolishing a housing market and capitalist economy that exploits us all.

Image: a still from a promotional video for the Big Housing Build