Dr Rachel Ong Viforj
John Curtin Distinguished Professor
Curtin University
Rachel Ong ViforJ is a member of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Economics at Curtin University. Her research expertise covers housing affordability dynamics, intergenerational housing inequality, the role of housing as economic and social infrastructure, and housing policy evaluations. Rachel is Vice-Chair of the Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research (APNHR), where she also leads the APNHR Working Group on Intergenerational Housing Issues. Rachel has won numerous awards for her research and policy impact, including the Young Economist Award, AACSB Influential Leaders Award and Berry Award for Excellence in Housing Research. She was recently a member of the CEDA Council on Economic Policy and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.
SESSIONS
Day 1
9:15
What is Affordable Housing? Why Clarity and Purpose are Critical to Effective Delivery
Unclear and inconsistent definitions of affordable housing continue to undermine the establishment of a coherent and scalable affordable housing sector
Variations across jurisdictions increase the risk of misaligned policy settings, ineffective investment decisions, and housing outcomes that fail to deliver genuine, long-term affordability
Understanding the critical differences between affordable rental housing and discounted-to-market models, and why a consistent, workable definition is essential to enable productivity, investment confidence, and effective delivery at scale
Dr Rachel Ong Viforj, John Curtin Distinguished Professor, Curtin University