National competitive grant success for HACRU researchers
Housing and Community Research Unit researchers Dr Kathleen Flanagan, Assoc Prof Daphne Habibis and Prof Keith Jacobs at the Institute for the Study of Social Change have been successful in winning six competitive national research grants, amounting to $365,000 in the 2017 National Housing Research Program.
Four of the grants, address the issue of housing support for vulnerable families, especially those experiencing domestic and family violence. This includes the question of how housing services can best be integrated with other types of support, to enhance individual and family safety and wellbeing. Together, the project will provide new knowledge on the gendered nature of housing insecurity, housing pathways, and transition points at which culturally safe and holistic service responses are effective. Dr Flanagan is leading one of these projects that focuses on the safety of, risks to, and well-being outcomes for women and children who move house after leaving family violence. Using a housing pathways approach it will identify where and how a more integrated service response at critical intervention points can improve outcomes for family violence survivors
The other two grants concern the question of whether social housing should be treated as a form of welfare or whether it should be treated as essential infrastructure. Drawing on the expertise of leading national and international scholars and policy makers it will strategically inform efforts to build an investment pathway for social housing across Australia. One of these projects, led by Dr Flanagan will develop a conceptually and empirically robust case for why understanding of the need for social housing should go beyond a welfare-only reading to incorporate its contribution to sustainable and efficient urban environments.
Pictured: Associate Professor Daphne Habibis and Professor Keith Jacobs