Indicators
Topic 1: Waiting for social housing
Demand for social housing has grown significantly over the last decade, and is outstripping new supply, as reflected in continued growth in the social housing waitlist.
Tasmania’s wait time for social housing for ‘greatest-need households’ is now the second highest in Australia, after the Northern Territory. See: Productivity Commission data.
This lengthy waiting period is putting financial, practical, relationship and emotional strain on many Tasmanians who urgently need access to safe, affordable and appropriate housing.
Recent research by Dr Catherine Robinson and others exploring people’s experiences of lengthy waits for social housing in Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland found that waiting for social housing was detrimental to people’s health, wellbeing and safety. People described waiting a long time for social housing as horrible, demoralising, traumatic, nerve-wracking, tiring, dreadful, disappointing and soul-destroying. See: Waithood: The experiences of applying for and waiting for social housing
Indicators:
Updated on 26 June 2025 with the latest available data.
In April 2025:
- There are 5,094 applicants on the social housing waitlist — the highest number ever.
- There are 581 homeless applicants on the social housing waitlist who are entirely without housing (e.g. sleeping in a tent or car). There are another 3,304 applicants staying in temporary or insecure accommodation, such as a shelter or they’re couch surfing.
- There are 733 applicants on the social housing waitlist who are ‘highest priority,’ which includes those leaving homelessness services, prison, hospital or out-of-home care.
- The average wait time for social housing for priority applicants (highest priority and standard priority) is 81.6 weeks, which equates to more than 18 months.
Figure 1.1: The number of applications on Tasmania’s social housing waitlist increased from 3,809 in January 2021 to 5,094 in April 2025. This is an increase of 34% over about four years.
NB: See our Glossary for explanations of:
- Different definitions of homelessness; and
- Priority categories used for the social housing waitlist.
Figure 1.2:
Tasmania’s social housing waitlist and wait times increased between 2020 and 2024:
- The number of ‘highest priority’ applicants increased by 73% from 406 in 2020 to 707 in 2024.
- The number of ‘standard priority’ applicants increased by 30% from 2,390 in 2020 to 3,098 in 2024.
- The number of all applicants increased by 41% from 3,373 in 2020 to 4,745 in 2024.
- The number of people on the social housing waitlist increased by 34% from 6,197 people in June 2020 to 8,273 people in July 2024.
NB: See our Glossary for an explanation of the number of applicants versus the number of people waiting for social housing.
It is unacceptable that Tasmanians are waiting for many months or even years on the social housing waitlist before being allocated a home. Moreover, Tasmanians are waiting longer on average for social housing than people in other states and territories.
This means that, for many Tasmanians, social housing is currently not a realistic solution to their housing insecurity, and many are continuing to struggle in overcrowded, unsafe or unaffordable housing — or sleeping rough.
There is an urgent need for new social housing in Tasmania in addition to what has already been committed. Many organisations, including Shelter Tasmania the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and Everybody’s Home, have called on governments to deliver more social housing to achieve a target of 10% of all dwellings in Australia being social housing. Homes Tasmania has committed to delivering around 3,100 social housing dwellings by 2032 — that’s far too few to meet the growing demand in Tasmania.
TasCOSS is calling on the next state government to
- Take targeted action to significantly reduce the number of applications and people on the social housing waitlist, and reduce the average wait time for social housing for priority applicants.
- Commit to an accelerated program of delivering more social housing, including a clear pathway to social housing being 10% of all dwellings in Tasmania.
Topic 2: Progress on the Homes Tasmania targets
The Tasmanian Government’s Tasmanian Housing Strategy (the Strategy) sets an ambitious vision “to end homelessness by improving the entire housing system and ensuring all Tasmanians have access to safe, appropriate and affordable housing.”
The Strategy makes several commitments:
- Deliver more quality homes, faster;
- Support people in need;
- Improve private market affordability and stability; and
- Enable local prosperity.
The Tasmanian Government has promised to deliver a range of housing for Tasmanians, covering crisis accommodation, social housing including specialist and supported accommodation, affordable rentals, affordable home purchases and affordable land lots.
The Strategy includes a target of delivering 10,000 social and affordable homes by 2032, including a sub-target set in 2023 of 2,000 additional social homes by 2027
However, it is important to note that the Tasmanian Government did not promise to deliver — and is not delivering — 10,000 new homes.
See our Glossary for an explanation of the types of housing support delivered in Tasmania.
Indicators:
Updated on 26 June 2025 with the latest available data.
In April 2025:
- Homes Tasmania has completed a total of 4,381 homes and land lots, of which only 2,055 are social housing homes.
- There are another 654 deliverables in Homes Tasmania’s pipeline.
- There are still 4,965 deliverables in the concept phase.
Figures 2.1 and 2.2: In April 2025, Homes Tasmania has made progress towards achieving its 10,000 target by 2032 and its 2,000 social housing sub-target by 2027.
Figure 2.3:
In April 2025:
- There are no crisis units in Homes Tasmania’s pipeline or concept phase because it has delivered on its target for crisis units.
- Almost half (49%) of deliverables in the pipeline and 84% in the concept phase are going to be affordable homes, affordable rentals or affordable residential lots, rather than social housing and supported accommodation.
- There are 2,752 affordable home purchases in the pipeline, making up 28% of the 10,000 target.
Figure 2.4: According to Homes Tasmania’s Strategy, the composition of social and affordable homes in Tasmania will change significantly from their 2020 baseline figures to their final figures in 2032. The proportion of social housing and supported accommodation will decrease from 89% to 67% and the proportion of affordable housing will increase from 8% to 32%.
NB: Our calculations for Figure 2.4 don’t take into account any homes which may be lost between 2020 and 2032 (e.g. due to severe damage or environmental disasters).
Updated 26 June 2025 with the latest available data
This infographic (above) shows that Homes Tasmania has made progress towards achieving its 10,000 target — but not all of what they have delivered is actually a home. As well, many of the deliverables are re-purposed homes rather than new homes — and therefore do not contribute to overall housing supply.
Updated 26 June 2025 with the latest available data
Noting that, in April 2025, the completed total includes:
- 411 residential land lots (without any homes on them).
- 882 affordable rentals for existing homes rather than new builds.
- 565 affordable home purchases for existing homes rather than new builds.
- It is not clear how many of the social housing and supported accommodation delivered are existing homes that have been repurposed, rather than new homes.
So, while Homes Tasmania has delivered a mix of 4,381 homes, residential land lots and crisis units — the actual number of homes and crisis units they have delivered is 3,970; and the number of new homes and crisis units is, at most, 2,523.
The actual figure for new homes may be even lower if any of the social housing homes counted towards the targets are re-purposed homes rather than new builds.
Coming soon: TasCOSS will explore this further with Homes Tasmania and we’ll share our findings here.
In 2020, the Tasmanian Government committed to delivering 10,000 social and affordable ‘homes’ by 2032, including a commitment to deliver 2,000 social ‘homes’ between 2023 and 2027. Although Homes Tasmania is making progress delivering on these targets, unfortunately the impact on the housing crisis has been minimal.
This is evident in the growing numbers on the social housing waitlist; growing demand for homelessness services; and community organisations reporting worsening difficulties accessing safe, appropriate and affordable housing for their clients, which is intensifying their experiences of family violence, poverty and disadvantage.
Anglicare Tasmania delivers the Housing Connect Front Door service to Tasmanians seeking housing support. In 2024, Anglicare’s Social Action and Research Centre released service data demonstrating the need for more social housing beyond what’s already committed. Their research highlights that there is insufficient affordable housing available to meet the needs of over two thirds (69%) of clients seeking long-term, safe and affordable housing in this state. See: More houses needed: Housing Connect Front Door Service Snapshot, Anglicare Tasmania, October 2024
Is the modelling by Homes Tasmania, which presumably informed the housing targets, still reflective of need, noting the social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and inflationary pressures? In the midst of a housing affordability crisis in Tasmania which has worsened since the two targets were set, they are unlikely to meet the current need for housing in this state.
There has been confusion expressed about what exactly the Tasmanian Government has committed to deliver. As we’ve highlighted (above), what has been delivered so far towards the 10,000 target is not always a home (e.g. residential land); and it’s not always a new home (e.g. an affordable rental or an affordable purchase of a pre-existing home). While it’s not unreasonable for Homes Tasmania to transition pre-existing housing into affordable housing or social housing, this won’t lift the overall supply of housing or boost housing construction activity in Tasmania.
Updated on 26 June 2025 with the latest available data.
TasCOSS is calling on the next state government to:
- Boost their 10,000 and 2,000 targets, in view of the acute housing shortage and very low housing affordability in Tasmania, especially for people on low incomes.
- Double the proportion of social homes and supported accommodation in their overall target, to reduce Homes Tasmania’s heavy reliance on affordable rentals and affordable homes to reach the target.
- Provide more clarity on their plans and funding mechanisms for the 4,965 homes and land lots still in the concept phase, to provide critical information to community housing providers and the housing construction industry.
Topic 3: Rental affordability
Tasmania is experiencing a rental affordability crisis, which mirrors the general situation nationally.
While private residential rental increases in Tasmania are showing signs of levelling off, median rents increased very sharply (by 21.5%) over two years, from June 2020 to June 2022. Growth in median rents continued to 2025. The growth since 2020 has outpaced growth in median household income in Tasmania. Rents in Tasmania are now only 10% lower than the Melbourne median, despite the average rental household income in Tasmania being 18% lower than in Melbourne. See: Latest Insights into the Rental Market, Australian Bureau of Statistics and SGS Rental Affordability Index 2024.
Steep rental price increases have meant that lower income Tasmanians are struggling to afford their rent. For the lowest income households, this is pushing people into housing stress, overcrowded housing or homelessness.
Anglicare Tasmania has observed that this rental affordability crisis is also a barrier to addressing important social issues, including “domestic and family violence, bed-block in the public hospital system and persistent disadvantage.” See: Rental Affordability Snapshot 2025, Anglicare Tasmania.
Homes Tasmania’s dashboard highlights a correlation between the median rent price and the number of people on the social housing waitlist, which is causing wait times for social housing to grow. See: Indicator 1, Homes Tasmania Dashboard; and Topic 1: Waiting for social housing, Tasmania’s State of Housing Dashboard.
An underlying issue is the very low rental vacancy rate in the state’s three major population centres of Burnie, Hobart and Launceston. This very low vacancy rate indicates that the relationship between the number of available rentals is far lower than the number needed to meet demand for rental housing, and market power is tipped in favour of landlords. Under these conditions, prospective tenants are faced with few housing options to choose from and little opportunity to negotiate a lower rent.
Headline indicators: For the second year running, Anglicare Tasmania’s Rental Affordability Snapshot 2025, found that 0% of properties listed in March 2025 were affordable for Tasmanians who were:
- Families relying on Single Parenting Payment;
- People relying on Disability Support Pension;
- Single people receiving JobSeeker;
- Young people receiving Youth Allowance; or
- Single people relying on the Age Pension wanting a place of their own.
Rental vacancy rates in Tasmania’s three main population centres of Burnie, Launceston and Hobart were well below the healthy target rate of 3%.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the median residential rent for Tasmania grew by 43% from 2020 to 2025. Over the same period, Tasmania’s population only increased by 6.5%.
Figure 3.1: The Tenants’ Union of Tasmania Median Weighted Index of Rents is continuing to increase for Tasmania overall (up 2.6% over the previous 12 months), as well as for each region. Over the past 12 months, residential rent prices have increased the most in the North-West (up 9.9%).
Figure 3.2: According to Everybody’s Home, renting a home in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie, the East Coast and the West Coast would push a single person on JobSeeker into extreme rental stress. A single person on Disability Support Pension renting a home in all these locations would suffer either extreme or severe rental stress. A single person on minimum wage would experience moderate to severe rental stress in all these locations, too.
See our Glossary for an explanation of rental stress.
Figure 3.3: Anglicare Tasmania’s Rental Affordability Snapshot for March 2025 found that only 13 advertised rental properties which were affordable and appropriate for single people receiving Youth Allowance, JobSeeker Payment, Disability Support Pension or Parenting Payment Single or a couple with both receiving JobSeeker Payment.
Figure 3.4a and 3.4.b: Homes Tasmania’s Private Rental Incentives Scheme (PRIS) and Family Violence Rapid Rehousing program both “provide access for people on the Housing Register into the private rental market by head leasing properties and subsidising the rent amount, so they are affordable.” See: Affordable private rentals, Home Tasmania.
On 1 July 2024, Homes Tasmania set larger targets of 400 homes for PRIS and 150 homes for Rapid Rehousing by 30 June 2026. However, since these targets were set, the number of homes in both programs has actually decreased. At April 2025, there were 214 homes in PRIS and 44 homes in Rapid Rehousing, with gaps of 47% and 71% of the targets, respectively.
The crisis in rental affordability is not unique to Tasmania — it is a nationwide phenomenon which is complicated by three levels of government being involved in housing policy. That said, Tasmania has experienced a particularly severe reduction in rental affordability since 2020, compounded by having lower median household incomes than nationally. See: SGS Rental Affordability Index 2024.
Home ownership rates in Australia have declined significantly, driving a corresponding increase in the proportion of renters, especially among younger people. Rental affordability is a key issue for socio-economic equity because Australia renters are more likely than homeowners to be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, single parents, unemployed, international students or immigrants. The proportion of older women renting due to family separation is also rising. See: Implications of declining home ownership, Parliamentary Library, May 2025.
One priority of the Tasmanian Housing Strategy is to “improve private market affordability and stability” including through the objective of “continuing to help Tasmanians in rental stress and encouraging existing and prospective property owners to increase the supply of affordable and secure rentals.”
Homes Tasmania’s Key Performance Indicator 5 is to “deliver more affordable rentals,” through their PRIS and Family Violence Rapid Rehousing programs. By their own metric, Homes Tasmania is not delivering on this objective, as the number of homes in these programs have decreased since the targets were boosted in 2024. While a combined total of 258 affordable rental homes has been delivered, compared to an estimated 44,000 private rentals in Tasmania, these programs are insufficient to significantly improve rental affordability in this state. See: Renting in Tasmania, Shelter Tasmania.
Rental affordability is a complex, multi-factorial problem. Responding to it effectively will require the next state government to pull multiple different policy levers which influence the private rental market well beyond the delivery of niche rental affordability programs which reach only a few households.
TasCOSS is calling on the next state government to implement more ambitious policy reforms aimed at increasing the supply of private rentals, providing better protections for renters and reducing rental prices.
TasCOSS is calling on the next state government to:
- Introduce comprehensive reforms to significantly improve rental affordability in Tasmania, particularly for Tasmanians living on low incomes.
- Review the offerings of PRIS and the Family Violence Rapid Rehousing program, with a view to increasing uptake by landlords.
- Urgently bring forward the review of the Residential Tenancy Act 1997 to provide better protections for renters, especially in relation to no grounds evictions and rental increases.
- Better regulate short-stay accommodation to limit the permitting of whole-homes in areas with low rental vacancy rates.
See also TasCOSS’s recommendations for Topics 1 and 2.