The Retirement Living Council (RLC) has joined forces with Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) to seek key changes to the pensioner assets test. The objective: encourage pensioners to downsize or ‘right-size’ to more appropriate housing, including retirement villages.
Executive director of the Retirement Living Council, Mary Wood was joined by ACSA’s manager of government relations and policy, Heather Witham, at a hearing of the Senate inquiry into affordable housing held in Sydney on Monday to present the RLC’s submission.
They argued that frail elderly people are deterred from selling their family home – often their only asset - and moving to more appropriate and supported housing like a retirement village, because the potential cash nest egg it could create would penalize their pension. Research shows this is a deterrent for 30 per cent or more of pensioners.
The RLC calls for:
• up to $150,000 from the sale of a person’s home to be exempted from the aged pension assets test for full pensioners aged 75 and over
• that the income from the sale of the home be held in special accounts established by banks and credit unions
• the funds are to be used specifically for health and wellbeing expenses including home care and other in-home services.
The proposal draws on a substantial body of evidence that shows that frail, older people living in well designed and supported forms of accommodation remain healthy and independent longer, delaying or avoiding entry into aged care.
Mary said the proposal was received well, especially as it didn’t ask for money. The Senators said the proposal was an imaginative approach to housing affordability and drew on the existing powers of the Commonwealth, rather than seeking capital grants and subsidies for the sector.
She added it would give people more housing choice.
“Such a policy, if implemented, would have broad social and economic benefits, most notably being an increase in the capacity of senior Australians to live independently and happily,” she said.
Mary was previously chief of staff to the Federal Minister for Human Services and senior adviser to the Commonwealth Minister of Housing.
ACSA, under CEO John Kelly, has increased their focus on independent living and villages in particular. Heather Witham and Mary have now worked together on a number of initiatives for the sector.
