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About More than a Roof Overhead
"You can tick every box: health, education, training, employment, community harmony, substance abuse, violence, and criminal behaviour. With all our best efforts and despite great financial outlays, without decent housing our chances of solving these problems are likely to be largely futile."
Elliott McAdam, Former Minister for Housing, NT Government.
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About
At 30 June 2006, the resident Indigenous population of Australia was 517,200 or 2.5% of the total population. Of these, just under a third live in what is classified as remote and very remote parts of the country, where they experience health, life-expectancy, education and living conditions far below those of the majority of other Australians. Crowded and poorly maintained housing is both a symptom, and an ongoing cause, of severe social disadvantage. As Paul Pholeros argues, “If people live in Third world conditions in overcrowded, poorly built and maintained houses, then it is not surprising that they suffer the same health and social problems as people in developing countries”.
The 3-year Australian Research Council grant funded project “More than a Roof Overhead: Meeting the Need for a Sustainable Housing System in Remote Indigenous Communities” is led by Prof John Fien, with Dr Esther Charlesworth, A/Prof Ralph Horne, Prof Ron Wakefield and a group of other researchers from Charles Darwin University, ANU, and industry partners. It follows on from a series of project activities by these researchers through the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and with Northern Territory Housing.
Where much research on Indigenous housing in the past has concentrated on individual elements of housing provision (such as health, culture, design, repairs, etc), this project is based upon a broad, whole-of-system and interdisciplinary approach in research on the delivery and management of remote Indigenous housing where the key challenge is to design, build and manage housing as an integrated and sustainable system.
The aim of the research is to ensure that current and future investments in housing can maximise both:
(i) housing outcomes, in terms of increased numbers and improved functionality and longevity, as well as
(ii) non-housing outcomes, such as improvements in family well-being, health, education and economic development, that are associated with improved housing
Project Outcomes
The outcomes of the project will include:
- Guidelines for appropriate and effective consultation with, and Indigenous participation in, housing decisions;
- Strategies for leveraging investments in housing as a driver of employment, entrepreneurship, and regional and community development in and around remote Indigenous settlements;
- Guidelines and protocols for developing and enhancing education, training and workforce development programs for remote Indigenous Australians to support housing-related employment;
- The development of decision support tools to support the development of innovative approaches to the procurement, design, construction and management of houses to maximise shelter and non-shelter outcomes for families; and
- Recommendations for the review and development of policy goals and programmes through the life of the project.
In addition to the Universities involved, partners include Territory Housing, Western Australia Department of Housing and Works, Indigenous Business Australia, the Centre for Appropriate Technology, and Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation.
Project Partners
Research partners
Centre for Design, RMIT University
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), ANU
Yolŋu Aboriginal Consultants Initiative, Charles Darwin University
Partner organisations
Western Australia Department of Housing
Centre for Appropriate Technology
Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation