PROGRAM

Welcome to Country
Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC)
Uncle Michael West, Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council

Performance
Sydney Street Choir

Welcome from the CHIA NSW Chief Executive Officer
Mark Degotardi, CEO, CHIA NSW

Plenary Session 1
Ashley Fell, Director of Advisory, McCrindle Research

SPONSORED BY: Home in Place

The benefits (and cost effectiveness) of Housing First programs like Together Home have been acknowledged over many years. This session will consider what is next for it and other Housing First programs in NSW. It will also consider how social impact bonds have been used to fund homelessness programs in Australia, including Foyer Central, and whether they could work for Housing First programs in NSW.

Speakers:
Sally Regan, General Manager – Specialist Housing and Impact, Hume Community Housing
Dusanka Mrdjenovic, Manager, Housing Independence, Hume Community Housing
Humair Ahmad, Director Community Housing, Department of Communities and Justice
Patrick Bollen, Manager Impact Investing, Social Ventures Australia

Facilitator: Nada Nasser, State Director (NSW/ACT/VIC), Mission Australia

Once considered a leader in social housing, New Zealand’s waiting list has increased almost fivefold in the past five years. This session will look at the factors driving this, and the measures to address it including reforms allowing upzoning and higher-density housing, and the role of community housing providers in delivering new homes. The session will also examine New Zealand’s social housing purchasing strategy, including the income related rent subsidy, and how it impacts the delivery of social housing, particularly for community housing providers.

Speakers:
Paul Gilberd, CEO, Community Housing Aotearoa
Cate Kearney, Chief Executive, Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust
Kay Saville-Smith, Research Director, CRESA – Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment

Facilitator: Heather Dear, Senior Policy Officer, CHIA NSW

Housing is on the cusp of financial innovation and a period of historic investment in social and affordable housing. But will this be another investment hit like the National Building Economic Stimulus Program or can we transform the historic investment into industry and system change? This session will explore opportunities and constraints in the Housing Australia Future Fund and initiatives from Queensland to transform housing.

Speakers:
Charles Northcote, CEO, BlueCHP
Emma Nicholson, A/Head of Policy and Innovation, NSW Land and Housing Corporation
Rowena Johnston, National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC)
Ryan Murphy, Director, Real Estate Strategy, Queensland Investment Corporation

Facilitator: Carrie Hamilton, Housing Action Network

SPONSORED BY: Lee Road Consulting

The Greater Cities Commission has transitioned from strategic planning for Greater Sydney to the broader Six Cities Region. Does this model offer opportunities for planning for regions more effectively? In Regional NSW, how can we leverage a clustering or regional city approach to better plan for social and affordable housing across NSW?

Building on the experience of the Special Activation Precincts, Regional Planning for housing and development, and the current Key Worker Housing Initiative, this session will aim to explore a new way of planning for housing in the regions.

Speakers:
Kim Sinclair, CEO, SEARMS
Maree McKenzie, CEO, Homes North
David Witherdin, Chief Executive, Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation
Adam Zarth, Executive Director, Business Illawarra

Facilitator: Michele Adair, CEO, Housing Trust

SPONSORED BY: Community Housing Ltd

Community housing providers (CHPs) are committed to sustaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community housing tenancies and recognise that sustaining tenancies is the foundation to building inclusive communities.

This session will examine new approaches to sustaining tenancies by building partnerships between CHPs and Aboriginal organisations, backed by a new Memorandum of Understanding between CHPs and Aboriginal Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.

Speakers:
Paul Teerman, Aboriginal Partnerships Specialist, CHIA NSW
Jim Allen, Manager, Murra Mia, Murra Mia Aboriginal Tenants Advocacy Service
Carolyn Doherty, CEO, Argyle Housing
Miranda Serkinic, Executive Manager – People, Performance and Capability, Housing Trust

Facilitator: Charlie Trindall, Operations Manager MLAHMC Ltd

This session will explore techniques to manage challenging behaviours. Hear from experts in the field discuss their strategies for dealing with customers with challenging behaviours and how to promote conversations that lead to positive customer service for everyone. A Q & A session will open up the conversation to all participants to explore the strategies put forward and to allow for further sharing of ideas.

Speakers to be confirmed for this session.

Facilitator: Catherine Tracey, Head of Learning and Development

SPONSORED BY: Landcom

Councils are leaping ahead, establishing new AH schemes and investing in new projects. Who is leading the way? What have they learned? How do we spark the next wave? This session will compare outcomes from different models (in a way that is engaging for local councils, recognising different priorities and values).

This session will be facilitated to allow for an open conversation on local councils’ priorities, what is achievable under different models, and what would be required to support new supply at a more significant scale.

Speakers:
Paul Tilbrook, Director, Paxon
Leonie King, CEO, City West
Liz Collyer, Strategic Partnerships Manager – AH, Landcom
Mayor Michael Lyon, Byron Shire
Cr Dr Elizabeth Adamczyk, Councillor, City of Newcastle

Facilitator: Will Roden

Tenant satisfaction and outcomes are integral to the social purpose of community housing providers (CHPs). How can data be used by CHPs to understand the drivers of tenant satisfaction and inform their approach to engagement?

This session will present CHIA NSW’s data on tenant satisfaction, with an emphasis on tenants’ rights. It will feature case studies from CHPs in Australia (NSW and Victoria) and United Kingdom outlining lessons learned and ways to improve overall satisfaction. The session will conclude by considering how best practice examples can be utilised to inform a new and innovative approach in NSW.

Speaker:
Lydia Dlaboha , Deputy CEO, Housing Quality Network (UK)
Adam West, Head of Business Services, CHIA NSW

Facilitator: Sarah Trant, National Manager, Communications & Engagement, Mission Australia Housing

SPONSORED BY: Paxon Group

Plenary Session 2 – Housing State of Play – Opportunities for Community Housing
The Federal Government’s housing initiatives, including the Housing Australia Future Fund and National Housing Accord, present significant opportunities for the community housing sector. This session will cover the state of play on the range of housing reforms, and how the NSW Government will work with the sector to deliver more social and affordable housing in NSW. It will also include observations from the UK, and how these could be applied in Australia to deliver housing at scale, particularly in the context of the Housing Australia Future Fund and National Housing Accord.

Speakers: Simon Newport, CEO, NSW Land and Housing Corporation
Andrew McAnulty, CEO, Link Wentworth
Alex Wendler, CEO, Landcom
Famey Williams, Chief Executive, Aboriginal Housing Office

Facilitator: Rebecca Pinkstone, CEO, Bridge Housing, and Chair, CHIA NSW

Speaker: Janelle Goulding, Business Development, Affordable Housing

Welcome & Introduction

Day 2 opening address – speaker to be confirmed.

Plenary Session 3 – The other crisis: the impacts of climate change on community housing
Climate change is already having a range of social, economic, and environmental impacts across NSW. Community housing providers will need to adapt and respond to these impacts in order to continue to provide safe and secure housing to their tenants. This will include decarbonisation of the housing they manage to achieve net-zero emissions targets. This session will explore the climate-related risks and opportunities facing the sector, and how community housing providers can take the lead on climate action.

Speakers: Meg McDonald, Environment Commissioner, Greater Cities Commission
Professor Dave Adamson, Group Chief Strategic Engagement Officer, Home In Place
Margot Black, General Manager, Corporate Sustainability, Investa

Facilitator: Scott Langford, CEO, SGCH

Staffing – the constant conversation in the industry – not enough staff, recruiting the right staff and too much work. This session will showcase how to develop a vibrant, passionate and connected community of professional housing workers. Hear from employment experts about techniques to develop intentional career development learning, career mapping over time and managing career development in the rapidly changing labour market.

Speakers to be confirmed for this session.

Facilitator: Catherine Tracey, Head of Learning and Development, CHIA NSW

Community housing providers are committed to working in partnership with relevant organisations to deliver community and tenant engagement initiatives as part of their core business. This session will examine how best practice initiatives can be used to drive better outcomes for current and future tenants residing in co-operative community housing and (mainstream) community housing in NSW.

Speakers:
A/Prof Louise Crabtree-Hayes, University of Western Sydney
Nick Sabel, CEO, Common Equity
Jesse Taylor, Community Development Manager – Mid North Coast, Mission Australia
Steve Neale, Community Development Manager, Community Housing Limited
Michelle Palmer, Community Participation Officer, Home in Place
Yvonne Jenkins, Tenant Representative, BRANCH co-op

Facilitator: Caitlin McDowell, Head of Policy, CHIA NSW

The renewal of public housing estates presents an opportunity to deliver more and better housing. However, past approaches to rebuilding estates have raised concerns around the loss of public housing, the sell-off of public land, and displacement of existing communities.

This session is intended to explore how estate renewal could be better delivered and the role that community housing providers could play in driving better outcomes.

Speakers:
Renee Wirth, Group Executive Customers, SGCH
Simon Robinson, Managing Director, OFFICE
Professor Bill Randolph, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

Facilitator: Michael Carnuccio, Senior Policy Officer, CHIA NSW

Digital channels offer opportunities to transform services for tenants. But how do we make sure that we choose the right mix of digital services and that no-one is left behind? This session will explore best practice in digital customer service and engagement and the results of a major project on digital transformation jointly delivered by CHIA NSW and CHIA Victoria. The session will include international case study examples and detailed guidance for embarking on a digital transformation project.

Speakers:
Roger Jameson, Director, Housing Information Solutions
Brett Wilson, Chief Information Officer, Red Cross Australia

Facilitator:
Adam West, Head of Business Services, CHIA NSW

Speakers: Charles Northcote (CEO) & Matthew Whiteley (CFO)

SPONSORED BY: BlueCHP

Increasingly, the approach that community housing providers take to measure and report on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes is critical to securing investment, informing decisions, and providing transparency to stakeholders. This session will discuss the role of boards in ESG and how community housing providers embed ESG in organisational governance to ensure effective oversight occurs. An overview of the new ESG reporting standard for CHPs will also be provided.

Speakers:
Marcus Spiller, Principal and Partner, SGS Economics and Planning
Michelle Tjondo, Associate, SGS Economics and Planning
Ellis Blaikie, Executive Officer Advocacy and Impact, Bridge Housing
Alex O’Mara, Non-executive Director, SGCH
Catherine Maxwell, General Manager, Policy and Advocacy, Governance Institute of Australia

Facilitator: Mike Allen PSM, Independent Chair, Link Wentworth

SPONSORED BY: Community Housing Ltd

Community housing providers are delivering mixed tenure developments across NSW to both stretch subsidies further and to meet support mixed communities. Recent research from Atlas Economics and CHIA NSW showed both the significant return potential and the significant equity investment required for mixed tenure projects. To what extent do mixed tenure developments deliver better social and economic outcomes for communities?

Speakers:
Ian Lynch, CEO, Pacific Link Housing
Lyall Gorman, CEO, Evolve Housing
Esther Cheong, Director, Atlas Economics
Ryan van den Nouwelant, UNSW

Facilitator: Robyn Evans, General Manager, BaptistCare NSW/ACT

Recent elections have provided critical opportunities for the community housing sector to raise awareness of the housing vulnerability crisis and advocate for an increased supply of social and affordable housing in NSW through media, advocacy, and political engagement activities.

Community housing providers have been at the forefront of advocacy efforts in the local communities. This session will showcase a case study of a community housing provider that has adopted a grassroots approach to advocacy and partnerships to engage with local councils, state MPs, business chambers and local media.

The session will use a panel discussion to explore the strategic trends and opportunities for the industry to effectively influence political decision-makers using media, communications and advocacy activities over the four-year state electoral cycle.

Speakers:
Michele Adair, CEO, Housing Trust
Caitlin McDowell, Head of Policy, CHIA NSW
Peter Lewis, Executive Director, Essential Media
Eamon Waterford, CEO, Committee for Sydney
Marie Chase Sillars, Tenant Advocate
Eva Gerencer, Chief Communications Officer, Link Wentworth Housing

Facilitator: Lucinda Bourke, Head of Collaboration, Social Enterprise Finance Australia

SPONSORED BY: Community Housing Ltd

How do you future proof your asset management plans? In this session, we will hear from international asset management expert Kevin Bentley direct from the UK on the approaches adopted to housing association maintenance, including approaches to stock condition, stock sustainability and modelling and linkages to long term business planning. The masterclass will unpack key elements and best practice in an asset management strategy, including managing for growth and achieving value for money in a resource constrained environment.

Speaker:
Kevin Bentley, Procurement Consultant, Housing Quality Network (UK)

Facilitator:
Adam West, Head of Business Services, CHIA NSW

Keynote Presentation – Bridging the gap between homelessness and healthcare

This session will feature a presentation from Dr Daniel Nour, on his leadership and advocacy as the Founder of Street Side Medics, a not-for-profit organisation delivering a free, GP led, mobile medical service for people experiencing homelessness. Street Side Medics seeks to break down barriers faced by people experiencing homelessness to accessing primary health care in NSW.

Speaker: Dr Daniel Nour, Founder, Street Side Medics and Young Australian of the Year 2022

Facilitator: Debbie Georgopoulos, CEO, Womens Housing Company

Closing Remarks