Read time: 5 mins
Based on More for Children Issues Paper #2: Housing, by Sharon Bessell, Cadhla O’Sullivan and Megan Lang, published October 2024.
Addressing child poverty is essential to ending entrenched disadvantage and creating a more cohesive and prosperous Australia. According to new ANU research from the Children’s Policy Centre, better housing policy could help.
Read time: 5 mins
Based on More for Children Issues Paper #2: Housing, by Sharon Bessell, Cadhla O’Sullivan and Megan Lang, published October 2024.
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ANU researchers have spoken with 132 children about their experiences of poverty. Many said they have a house but not a place they would call a home.
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When children were asked what makes a home, children talked about having some outdoors space to play, and indoor space that protects them from cold, heat, and mould. Emergency housing, and in many cases affordable market housing, was not doing this.
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Policies that can reduce children’s experiences of poverty without any change in parental income include: addressing conditions in emergency housing, ensuring housing is built at a high quality, (not just in high quantities), and providing child-inclusive outdoor spaces.
One in six Australian children live in income poverty – but reducing poverty is not only a matter of raising incomes. It’s about living a healthy, happy life. How can Australia help its children achieve this?
Led by the Children’s Policy Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, and supported by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the More For Children project aims to answer this question.
Over the last year, ANU researchers have spoken with 132 children about their experiences of poverty, the majority aged between six and twelve years old as part of the project. Quotations attributable to the children are under their chosen nicknames.
They found that for many children, home did not fulfil its promise as a place of security.
This was especially true for children in emergency housing. They can’t have friends over, isolating them from their peers, or have pets. Children described difficulty in building community relationships when they are forced to move regularly.
The poor quality of emergency housing affected children’s expectations for the future. Their idea of a decent standard of living was changed.
‘Suii’, 12 years old, said “[My brother] sleeps on the couch, and I sleep on the ground on a mattress. She [younger sister] sleeps next to me.”
Additionally, children said that to count their house as a ‘home’, it had to protect them from cold, heat, and mould. Emergency housing, and in many cases affordable market housing, was not doing this.
‘Atomic Bomb’, 12 years old, said “I didn’t have enough clothes to keep me warm, and there was no heating in the house. So I was kinda freezing.”
When children were asked what makes a home, children talked about both indoor and outdoor spaces. Outdoor spaces are essential – but often unattainable. Affordable housing too often sacrifices outdoor spaces and play spaces, narrowing children’s opportunities to be outside, and to play.
‘Tracy’, six years old, said “The backyard [is my favourite place in the house] ‘cause sometimes I go on the clothesline when I’m allowed to and that’s fun, like a space outside.”
Children don’t just need a house. They need a home. To them, this means somewhere comfortable and secure enough that they can actually relax. That means having a place to sleep, play, learn, bathe, and socialise.
“Children said that to count their house as a ‘home’, it had to protect them from cold, heat, and mould. Emergency housing, and in many cases affordable market housing, was not doing this.”
