What is this study about?
This AHURI funded project is investigating the types and impacts of prejudicial discrimination in the private rental housing sector. It will highlight the intersections of age, race, gender, sexuality, and technology. The project will deliver an international research evidence review and scope a research and policy agenda with housing practitioners from urban and regional Australia.
What do I need to do?
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Workshop Schedule – 25th September
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Workshop Participants
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COVID-19 and this Expert Panel
COVID-19 is having a major impact on society and we expect the workshop conversations will have to address questions about the pandemic and rental housing. However, we do not want to focus on COVID-19 and housing in particular in this workshop. We are interested in the longstanding, systemic discriminatory features of the private rental system in this expert panel. Therefore, we have provided below a position from one of the researchers in our team about how we might think about COVID-19 and the private rental sector for the purposes of this workshop.
Below is an Excerpt from an AHURI Policy Brief [download] by Dallas Rogers and Keith Jacobs
First, housing policy makers should not be adopting a COVID-19 response if it means ignoring longstanding inequities by drawing a line between the present pandemic and the housing policies that proceed it.
Second, the pandemic should be seen as an opportunity to see the longstanding housing problems in sharper relief, and use this insight to reset the power dynamics that have accentuated inequalities in the housing system. The pandemic might have more to teach us about the past than the future, at least at this point in time.
Third, a poor outcome of the pandemic would be to assume that the underlying systemic features of the housing system have been eclipsed by COVID-19, and are no longer relevant for housing analysis.
While COVID-19 might be seen like a rupture to policymakers, it is housing researchers’ job to also show the continuities; to show the ways in which housing systems remain intact and continue to discriminate against some while generating wealth for others.
Project Team
Dr Sophia Maalsen, Lecturer and DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney
Dr Caitlin Buckle, Research Associate in Housing Studies in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney
Dr Peta Wolifson, Post-doctoral Fellow in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney
Dr Jacqueline Nelson, Senior Researcher in the NSW Public Policy Institute
Dr Dallas Rogers, Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney