Indigenous lifeworlds, conditionality and housing outcomes

Abstract

<p>Indigenous housing occupies a complex policy environment in which policies andprograms are in intermittent states of flux. As a result, the existing frameworksstruggle to deliver sustainable outcomes. This study considers how conditionality inhousing policy and management contributes to housing outcomes, and what modes ofconditionality are most effective and in what contexts for Indigenous clients. Itconsiders the most effective co-related household and governance arrangements toenable forms of reciprocity to occur. A key hypothesis tested is the critical necessityfor a recognition space involving mutual recognition of the moral relationships of dutyand care between SHAs, intermediary organisations and tenants (see Figure 1 for adiagrammatic representation of the recognition space).</p><p>Completed over three years (201215), this project began with a literature review ofhousing policy in different jurisdictions spanning several decades to the present(Habibis et al. 2013). The research team then undertook five separate qualitative casestudies across remote, regional and metropolitan locations: namely, Tennant Creek inthe Northern Territory; the Goldfields region of Western Australia; and Mount Isa,Palm Island and Logan in Queensland.</p><p>The imposition of conditionalities into social housing policy mirrors earlier and broaderongoing reforms to welfare conditionality. Although these conditionalities continue toescalate, there is nothing novel in either applying conditions to funding, nor in usingcitizen entitlements as a mechanism to affect behavioural change. Thus, this studypragmatically accepts the presence of housing conditionality, and focusses on thetypes of conditionality applied to Indigenous housing and their relative effectiveness inachieving policy goals.</p><p>An early finding across all studies was the reduced role of ICHOs (Indigenouscommunity housing organisations) over recent years and the continuing struggle forgovernment funding by those remaining. ICHO capability development for selfgovernanceof Indigenous housing has not been supported by government since theAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) era. A range of otherorganisations are now involved in tenancy management, including communityorganisations and not-for-profit corporations. The bottom left apex of the recognitionspace framework (see above) was therefore changed from Indigenous governance tointermediary organisations.</p>