Housing costs push retirees to high risk areas

Dr Lois Towart, School of Built Environment, UTS and Associate Professor Kristian Ruming, Macquarie University

The impacts of a closed border and recent floods have highlighted the challenges facing older Australians who live permanently in caravan parks and manufactured home estates. These properties have long provided affordable housing for retirees, particularly those who rely on the age pension and have limited assets or housing equity. Residents typically own their caravan or mobile home and pay a regular site rental.

Two trends are emerging as problems for these residents:

1. caravan parks and manufactured home estates are undergoing “gentrification” as they transform into high-end domestic tourism (with border closures boosting demand) and lifestyle estates
2. many properties that house older Australians are increasingly exposed to natural hazards such as fire and floods

The interrelated issues of a shortage of affordable housing, development in hazard-affected locations and gentrification are funnelling the most disadvantaged Australians into the most problematic locations. Recent fieldwork in the Hastings and Manning river regions of New South Wales identified a number of caravan parks and manufactured home estates close to or even next to rivers that had been flooded. The most flood-affected properties tended to be those with the most affordable housing.

• Read the full story in The Conversation:  Soaring housing costs are pushing retirees into areas where disaster risks are high