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Hall & Wilcox helping out with housing
In a bid to help tackle challenges around affordable housing and specialist disability services, Hall & Wilcox has announced a new affiliation with PowerHousing Australia.
Grace Ormsby
PowerHousing Australia is a national network of 33 community housing providers who develop and manage social and affordable housing, the firm said, with members providing 60,000 homes for more than 100,000 people in housing worth more than $20 billion.
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According to a report from the UNSW City Futures Research Centre and Community Housing Association, Australia needs to build more than one million social and affordable homes by 2036 to arrest shortfalls caused by a lack of investment across decades and slow wage growth, a statement said.
One-third of these homes will be needed in NSW, Hall & Wilcox emphasised.
The firm has noted its strong commitment to, and expertise in, the social and affordable housing sector and social infrastructure generally, with partner Nick Slack commenting that the firm was looking forward to working with the group.
“There has been dawning recognition that solving the complex problem of providing affordable housing across the country requires active participation of federal, state and local government, the finance sector, the building and construction industry and the not-for-profit sector,” he noted.
The firm is “well placed to continue to assist the key players in the social infrastructure space, given our expertise in banking and finance, property and projects and tax,” Mr Slack highlighted.
“Our participation in this space forms part of our broader commitment to achieving better social outcomes, more sustainable communities and complements our pro bono and not-for-profit practices,” he stated.
PowerHousing Australia CEO Nicholas Proud is welcoming of the new strategic engagement and said it will greatly advantage the CHP sector in its future scale investment in the delivery of scale affordable housing.
“There has been a shift in the move towards focusing on affordable housing and, as the supply pipeline comes back from record delivery levels, the attention provided to affordable housing structured developments will only increase, as new vehicles such as the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation get fully active,” Mr Proud explained.
“While there is much to do on the part of PowerHousing Australia members to tackle the complexity of housing affordability, we have every confidence that the partnership with Hall & Wilcox will see our unique and compatible capacity fully leveraged to deliver tens of thousands of new affordable housing in the coming years,” he continued.
