Against the housing continuum
Chris Martin

Last week's National Housing Conference reference to 'the housing continuum'.

https://www.ahuri.edu.au/policy/ahuri-briefs/understanding-the-housing-continuum

I should distinguish where this term is used to describe the wide range of points where policy acts on the housing system. The term in this sense has been useful in prompting housing policy makers to think outside the social housing silo in which they were historically located.

 

The problem is that housing policy makers and many practitioners have come to think of the continuum as progressive stages through which households should move (crisis > social housing > affordable housing > private rental), and the job of policy is to make them move – literally, by moving house.