Housing
Social housing is infrastructure. The tools and frameworks on this page share one aim: designing housing, and the conversations around it, from the inside out, starting with the people who live there.
This work grew out of participation in the Homes NSW Newcastle Tenant Action Group and independent research into international models of housing support. Everything here is offered as a contribution to that conversation. Figures come from published NSW Government data, with sources listed at the end of the page.
The Waitlist in Numbers
Households approved and waiting on the NSW Housing Register, month by month since June 2023. Choose any allocation zone to see the local picture.
Counts exclude suspended applications. Small zones where Homes NSW suppresses figures under five for privacy are left out of the list.
Table Talk Cards, Expanded
Homes NSW uses Table Talk cards to open community conversations with tenants. This tool sets each original prompt beside an expanded version that asks what the original leaves out: what gets in the way, who decides, and whether a place has ever felt like home. It can be used at a community table, a tenant group meeting or a one-to-one conversation.
Original prompts
Expanded questions
Original prompts are from Homes NSW Table Talk community engagement cards, reproduced for discussion. Expanded questions and commentary by Maggie Hall. The argument is set out in full in the research paper What the Cards Don’t Say.
The Thinking Behind the Tools
The same argument, made at three levels: law (how social housing is classified), evidence (what the numbers and the engagement materials show) and design (how buildings and services are shaped for the people in them).
Social Housing as Infrastructure
Argues for social housing to be classified as critical infrastructure, with three structural corrections: no net reduction in social housing assets, security of tenure as the default, and rapid rehousing as the default response to homelessness.
What the Cards Don’t Say
A close reading of the Homes NSW Table Talk cards as evidence: what it means when questions like “how long have you lived here?” need to be printed on a card. The commentary in the conversation tool above comes from this paper.
Living Spaces
Tenant-led community hubs within social housing estates, built around art, gardening and music. Tenants with talent and time lead and volunteer, creating spaces that show the strengths of these communities rather than the negatives that reach the news.
Harm Reduction Housing Design Framework
Design principles for distinct cohorts whose needs standard social housing design misses, from sightlines and acoustic separation to intake processes. An extensible method rather than a closed list. Each cohort opens as its own PDF:
Each paper opens as a PDF. They were first prepared between May and July 2026 and revised for publication in October 2026, with figures updated to current published sources. Get in touch to discuss the work.
- Social housing applicant households on the NSW Housing Register by allocation zone, monthly, June 2023 to August 2026. NSW Department of Communities and Justice, Social housing waiting list data.
- Median waiting time for applicants housed from the NSW Housing Register (rolling 12 months), as at 30 June 2026, and newly housed households, August 2026. Same source.