Inaugural CHFWA e-Newsletter
Welcome to the first Community Housing Futures WA (CHFWA) sector update.
There has been a lot happening across CHFWA over recent months, from Growth Readiness Assessments and the first round of Business Advisory Grants to regional engagement and the development of the Learning and Development Hub.
Capability is infrastructure too: lessons from regional visits and our Learning and Development Hub consultations
Every new home starts long before construction begins.
Behind it are people who understand communities, organisations that can bring partners together, leaders who can make decisions, teams who know how to navigate funding and development, and relationships built over years.
Across CHFWA’s regional visits and Learning and Development Hub consultations, we are hearing how much of this capability already exists across Western Australia, alongside strong ambition to grow it further.
From workforce shortages affecting housing and community services, to growing interest in Aboriginal-led housing solutions and organisations seeking to better understand housing pathways, one message is clear. Communities want to do more, but they also need the knowledge, partnerships, systems and support to turn ambition into action.
These conversations are shaping the future of Community Housing Futures WA and reinforcing the importance of investing in the organisations and people who will help deliver housing outcomes across Western Australia.
Community Housing Futures WA: The sector is ready to do more
The past few months have been a significant period for CHFWA, with activity spanning the Business Advisory Grant round, regional engagement and the development of the program’s Learning & Development stream offer.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Story Behind Community Housing Futures WA
A program’s name is more than a label. It is a statement of intent. Community Housing Futures WA takes its name from a program that has already proven, in another state, that investing in community housing organisations changes lives.
What Happens When You Invest in Aboriginal-Led Housing Organisations: Lessons from the ACHO Project
In 2021, Shelter WA partnered with four Aboriginal Community Housing Organisations across Western Australia on a project that would prove to be one of the most impactful pieces of work the organisation had undertaken. The ACHO Capacity Building Project, funded by Lotterywest, set out to strengthen governance, operations, and collaboration across four organisations collectively managing around 300 homes for over 1,000 tenants. What it delivered went far beyond those goals.
No One Left Behind: What Shelter WA Learned from Three Years of Regional Engagement
You cannot design a program for all of Western Australia without first understanding all of Western Australia. That is exactly what Shelter WA set out to do between 2021 and 2023, when it undertook a landmark three-stage regional engagement project, funded by Lotterywest, that took the organisation into communities across all nine WA regions.
From Evidence to Action: How the Paxon Report Shaped Community Housing Futures WA
Every good program starts with a hard look at reality. For Community Housing Futures WA, that moment came in 2022 when Shelter WA commissioned the Paxon Group to examine a question that had been sitting uncomfortably in the sector for years: why is Western Australia’s community housing sector not growing fast enough to meet demand, and what would it take to change that?