Solutions to Overcrowding
The current stated policy aim of all Australian governments - reduce overcrowding in Indigenous housing.
The following is quoted from the FaHCSIA website.
"Improving housing conditions is essential to achieving improvements in Indigenous health, education and employment to help close the gap in life outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians.
Under the National Indigenous Reform Agreement, ‘Healthy Homes’ is one of seven inter-connected ‘building blocks’ — or priority action areas — that underpin the Closing the Gap strategy agreed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
The Australian Government has committed $5.5 billion over ten years to 2018 under the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing:
- significant overcrowding
- poor housing conditions
- the severe housing shortage in remote Indigenous communities."
The policy aims may be good, and there is a lot of money promised BUT the current implementation, nationally, is poor and the chances of reducing overcrowding are very, very small.
Building new houses alone will NOT reduce overcrowding ……..if this sounds impossible then read on because we believe this is a BIG ISSUE.
Overcrowding effects on housing and health
The National Indigenous Housing Guide (NIHG) is endorsed by Australian Federal and State Governments and is a key compliance document for the National Indigenous Housing program. One of the nine Healthy Living Practises is "Reducing the impacts of overcrowding" where some of the health risks of overcrowding are outlined alongside effective strategies for reducing the negative impacts of health through housing.
Crowded living conditions increase the risk of the spread of infectious diseases, such as meningococcal disease, rheumatic fever, tuberculosis and respiratory infections. In a crowded house it can also be more difficult to access health hardware, such as hot water, showers and clothes washing facilities. To reduce these risks, consider how to minimise the effects of crowding when planning the living environment.
Beware estimating house population by dividing population by house numbers because this could mean that houses will not be designed to have sufficient space and health hardware, and the residents will experience increased health risks.
It is also possible that specific parts of a house can become crowded at particular times. For example, in extreme climatic conditions, all members of the household are likely to congregate in the one room of the house that is able to be cooled or heated and this can lead to the increased spread of infection, even in small households.
Even if all houses in a community are fully functional, some families will choose to live in large, multi-generational households, despite other houses being available in the community. These families will not necessarily consider their house to be crowded, but could suffer health effects if the health hardware is not adequate for the number of people living in the house. A large household population can also cause health hardware to fail prematurely simply because it is constantly in use. Large populations may also result in high power bills for the main residents unless energy efficiency has been considered in house design and specification.
More houses can reduce the negative impacts of over-crowding, however the example above shows that it is also necessary to design for peak populations. This can be achieved by providing more health hardware in houses, developing the yard and edges of houses to provide more household service, cooling and heating several rooms in the house, providing additional sleeping areas, and ensuring the health hardware in most houses in a community is functioning most of the time through regular maintenance.
Consider the following options as solutions to overcrowding, the common reactive solution of building more houses will reduce overcrowding as opposed to a mixed solution which focuses on sustainable solutions.
Does building more houses effectively reduce overcrowding?
Community A has 20 houses and 120 people live in the community
This gives a crowding level of 6 people per house
Assume a new small house around 130 sq.m (current average size of an Indigenous house about half the size of the average non-indigenous house) can be built for $3,000 /sq.m = $400,000 approx per house + on costs = $450,000
5 houses are built in the community and there are now 25 houses with the same 120 people using the houses.
The improved assumed crowding rate is reduced to
4.8 people per house (120 people / 25 houses). With a total capital cost for the 5 houses of $ 2.25m (including all costs)
Crowding levels have been reduced and the national policy targets have been met.... right?
House function is what delivers benefits to the resident. The NIHG highest health priority is: The ability to wash. This example will use this priority to assess overcrowding.
If the 20 original houses were tested we would find that only 35% of the houses had a functioning shower to serve a total population of 120 people (from HfH national data).
That means only 7 houses have a working shower to serve the total population.
This means a functional crowding level of 17 people per house to have a shower.
Of the 5 new houses, at least 1 will have no function due to poor initial construction (from HfH national data)
Using the NIHG highest health priority: The ability to wash, this example shows the following results.
11 functioning houses for a population of 120 people.
This gives a functional crowding level of 11 people (approx) per house ……for a total capital cost of $2.25 million
Does a mixed solution reduce overcrowding?
If we take the same community and start with a maintenance program resembling Housing for Health(HfH). This will quickly:
- improve urgent safety and health function of all houses
- gather data on houses and infrastructure to plan for future upgrades or new housing
- employ and train local community staff
Assume cost per house = $11,000 (HfH max per house) and this raises the number of houses with functioning showers to 82% (HfH achieved result) or 16 functioning houses for 120 people = This results in a functional crowding level of 7.5 people per house
For a cost of 20 x $11,000 = $220,000
Using the budget spent in Option A ($2.25M) as a guide - $220,000 on initial maintenance bringing all houses up to an improved standard
With the $2.05m remainder:
- replace the bathroom/laundry and toilet areas in the 4 x houses that were not previously improved (4 x $100,000 = $400,000 installed (using
the HfH prefab bathroom)
- build 2 x new houses with a higher specification & inspection for $500k each = $1m
- employ a local maintenance team for 2 years (to maintain all 22 houses using $4,000 per house x 2 years) = $200,000
Total spent would be $1.82m over 2 years on capital & ongoing maintenance
Comparison of the two different approaches
- cost $2.25m
- provided 5 new houses, giving a total of 25 houses.
- Functional crowding level for washing people of 11 people per house (with no maintenance period)
- cost a total $1.82m on initial maintenance, various capital works and ongoing maintenance for 2 years
- provide 22 houses with ongoing maintenance and function for 120 people
- Functional crowding level for washing people of 5.4 people per house
The models shown are simple and have ignored:
- Population growth
- Population shift
- Clan and internal community dynamics that always mean population will not be equally distributed
- Community anger at new houses being built with no change to existing houses and widening the housing gap
Current national policy tends toward Option A: more money and crowding
This means overcrowding levels will not be reduced.