This year’s Federal Budget rightly placed housing front and centre. For too many Australians – young people locked out of ownership, families stretched by soaring rents, and first-home buyers watching their aspirations drift further away – housing has become the defining economic and social challenge of our time. The post-budget conversation has been loud, urgent, and necessary.
But something important has been lost in the noise.
The national conversation has hardened into a generational contest: young versus old, renters versus owners, and investors versus first home buyers. It is a framing that may be politically convenient, but it is fundamentally misleading. And worse, it renders some of the most vulnerable Australians invisible.
A fair housing system must work at every stage of life. Right now, ours is failing almost everywhere.
Consider the scale of housing insecurity among older Australians. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australians aged 65 and over are more likely to experience housing affordability stress than other age groups.
Anglicare Australia’s 2025 Rental Affordability Snapshot paints a dire picture. Just 0.3 per cent of rental listings nationally were affordable for a single person receiving the Aged Pension. For pensioner couples, the figure rose to only 0.7 per cent. In practical terms, older Australians on fixed incomes are competing for a handful of properties in a market of tens of thousands.
The situation for older women is particularly alarming. Around 240,000 women aged 55 or older are at risk of homelessness, and by 60 around one-third of single women are estimated to be living in or near poverty. These are not abstract statistics. They are women who have worked, raised families, cared for others, and contributed to their communities – only to find themselves facing housing insecurity through circumstances largely beyond their control.
The drivers are structural and cumulative. Many women retire with significantly lower superannuation balances or savings due to interrupted workforce participation, part-time work, and unpaid caring roles. The gender pay gap does not end at retirement; it compounds over decades. As renters reliant on the Aged Pension, many are exposed to a private rental market that offers little security and even less compassion. For some, they are one rent increase away from homelessness.
Older men, too, are increasingly experiencing housing insecurity, though often less visible. Many live in run-down boarding houses or endure long periods of “hidden homelessness” – couch surfing, sleeping in cars or moving between temporary arrangements while disconnected from support services.
The rising number of older Australians receiving Commonwealth Rent Assistance underscores the pressure. Since 2013, the number of recipients aged 65 and over has increased by around 70 per cent, to 397,000 in 2025. Yet even with that support, 43 per cent of low-income households receiving it still experience rental stress.
This is what housing insecurity looks like in later life: choosing between medication and groceries, not turning on the heater in winter, living with constant uncertainty about whether a lease will be renewed. Meanwhile, public housing waitlists have climbed to 169,000 and continue to grow.
Behind every statistic is a human story.
Last week, I attended the National Shelter forum, Housing at the Edge: Retiring Australians in the Housing Market, at Parliament House. The stories were confronting: older women repeatedly rejected for rentals because of insufficient income; older Australians accessing homelessness services for the first time; people turned away by lenders who treat age as a risk, not an asset.
The message from service providers, advocates, and researchers was clear: we urgently need practical and innovative housing solutions for older Australians, alongside pathways to ownership for younger generations.
This is not about one group competing with another. The generation conflict narrative serves no one except those who benefit from division.
The truth is far simpler. Australia’s housing system is failing people at both ends of the age spectrum, and at many points in between.
What does meaningful action look like?
First, Australia needs a sustained expansion of social and community housing. Not as a residual safety net, but as a mainstream option that delivers security, dignity and long-term affordability. Demand is rapidly outstripping supply. Social housing waiting lists are growing far faster than the housing stock itself.
Second, tenancy protections must be strengthened so older renters are not one landlord decision away from crisis. Important reforms are emerging in some jurisdictions, including through the work of NSW Rental Commissioner Trina Jones, but nationally we still lack a coherent framework that provides genuine long-term security for renters.
Third, the financial system must stop treating age as a proxy for unacceptable risk. Shared equity models, build-to-rent, and rent-to-buy schemes should be scaled and explained more clearly so people understand how they operate, and how they can access them.
Fourth, specialist homelessness services need sustained and adequate funding. Many are forced to turn vulnerable people away due to insufficient funds to provide beds and wraparound services.
Fifth, Australia needs a far more coordinated approach linking housing, retirement living and aged care policy. Expanding seniors housing, land lease communities, retirement living and integrated care models would allow older Australians to age with dignity, reduce pressure on hospitals, and free up large family homes.
Finally, income adequacy must be part of the housing conversation. No housing strategy is credible if payments like the Aged Pension and JobSeeker remain below levels that make rent structurally unaffordable.
Australia’s population is ageing rapidly. Without decisive intervention, housing insecurity among older Australians will only intensify.
The Federal Budget has opened the door to a serious national conversation about housing. That opportunity should not be squandered on generational conflict that pits Australians against one another.
Because if we keep framing this debate as young versus old, renters versus owners, or investors versus first-home buyers, we will miss the real issue – and continue failing the very people the system is supposed to support.
Adrian Harrington is the former Chair of the Federal Government’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (now known as Housing Australia)
Published in The Australian – 21 May 2026