Op Ed provided by Retirement Living Council Executive Director Daniel Gannon.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a thought. <\/p>\n
What if one of the quickest ways to get more family homes back onto the market was to stop penalising older Australians for leaving them? <\/p>\n
Australia talks endlessly about housing supply. Yet government policy actively discourages older people from moving into homes that better suit their needs. <\/p>\n
Retirement Living Council modelling shows simple changes to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) could help more older Australians move into retirement communities and free up family homes for younger buyers. <\/p>\n
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Daniel Gannon \u2014 Executive Director, Retirement Living Council Photo Jeremy Piper \/New Romans<\/p>\n
No rezonings. No new subdivisions. No decade-long planning fight. Just fix the rules. <\/p>\n
Rent assistance is where the problem becomes absurd. <\/p>\n
A pensioner entering a retirement village can lose access to CRA if they pay more than $267,000 to move in, which captures 97% of these homes. That threshold doesn\u2019t reflect today\u2019s housing market. It\u2019s a policy fossil. <\/p>\n
Worse, similar seniors\u2019 housing options are treated differently. That isn\u2019t smart policy, it\u2019s a penalty for unlocking housing supply. <\/p>\n
And when government makes it harder for older Australians to rightsize, the consequences don\u2019t stop at the front door. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australians are being penalised for wanting to stay in their own homes.<\/p>\n
People stay in homes that no longer suit them. Sometimes that becomes dangerous. <\/p>\n
That matters because Australia is ageing fast. The number of Australians over 85 will triple over the next 40 years, while the aged care system is already straining. <\/p>\n
Almost 4,000 Australians are stuck in hospital beds waiting for an aged care spot. More than 100,000 are waiting for ongoing Support at Home funding, while the broader queue for a package or assessment has been put above 200,000. <\/p>\n
This is where the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore. <\/p>\n
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