You are invited to join us for a phenomenal full-day experience
at the Shelter WA Community Housing Symposium & Innovation Showcase on Tuesday 19th September, 2023.
The Community Housing Symposium brings together stakeholders from the community housing, government and private sectors, to showcase the community housing industry in Western Australia.
The Innovation in Community Housing Showcase, sponsored by DevelopmentWA will highlight the existing achievements of the sector through presentations and will showcase innovation in a number of key areas including energy efficiency, diversity and tenant engagement within the community housing sector.
Our 2023 Symposium and Innovation Showcase will be held at WA Museum Boola Bardip on Tuesday, 19 September and we look forward to welcoming you to join us for what will be a phenomenal day.
Location: Hackett Hall, Mezzanine Level, WA Museum Boola Bardip
Seating Format: Theatre Style
Dress Code: Smart casual/Business
Ticket sales have now closed.
The Symposium event is an opportunity to discuss and dive deep into the challenges and opportunities the community housing sector is experiencing, with representatives from across several sectors; industry peak bodies, property development, government, and community housing.
The morning ‘Innovation in Community Housing Showcase’ event, sponsored by Development WA, will be a platform for community housing organisations to celebrate the fantastic work already happening in the sector. They will demonstrate their innovation in the areas of Building Communities, Technology, Design, Inclusion and Accessibility, Sustainability, Tenant Engagement, and New Business models as well as the opportunity for collaboration and presenting their capabilities and capacity to a broader audience.
The afternoon ‘Commonwealth Funding Ready’ session, co-hosted by UDIA, Master Builders, and CHIA and sponsored by Paxon Group and Super Housing Partnerships will bring industry, government, the community housing sector, and other key stakeholders together to identify areas of reform in systemic policy and brainstorm solutions to best leverage upcoming Commonwealth Funding for WA and attract further investment.
Professionals who are working in Community Housing, the Homelessness sector, government representatives (local, state, and federal), and, sector allies should all attend this event.
The ticket price includes morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea.
Symposium Program
Innovation in Community Housing Showcase | 9.00am-12.00pm, Registration from 8.15am
Opening Address: Kath Snell, Shelter WA CEO
Address: Hon John Carey BA MLA, Minister for Planning; Lands; Housing; Homelessness
Address: Warren Phillips. Manager Housing Delivery, DevelopmentWA
Presentation: Innovation in Building Communities, presented by Connect Victoria Park.
Presentation: Innovation in Design, Inclusion, and Accessibility, presented by Foundation Housing.
Morning Tea
Presentation: Innovation in Tenant Engagement, presented by Housing Choices.
Presentation: Innovation in New Business models, and collaboration, presented by Zonta House Refuge Association.
Lunch
Commonwealth Funding Ready in WA | 12.45pm-5.00pm
Opening Remarks and Symposium Objectives: Kath Snell, Shelter WA CEO
Address: Hon Patrick Gorman MP, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
MC for the afternoon proceedings: Amity James, Associate Professor | School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Discipline Lead; Property, Deputy Director of Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute at Curtin Research Centre Faculty of Business and Law
The State of WA
Housing and homelessness in the WA, analysis of the unmet needs and housing supply.
Ryan Van Den Nouwelant, Senior Lecturer UNSW, Lead author of Quantifying Australia’s unmet housing need – A national snapshot.
Bringing Together the Three Levels of Government Policy and Programs
The National Housing Accord, Social Housing Accelerator, Housing Australia Future Fund, policy and legislative reforms, the three levels of Government working together to deliver meaningful outcomes in Western Australia.
Commonwealth Government: Nathan Dal Bon, CEO, National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC)
Western Australia Government: Garrick Allen – Executive Director- Strategy Planning and Policy, Housing and Assets, Department of Communities
Local Government: Leanne Mitchell, Manager Community Strengthening and Social Planning, Brimbank City Council
Panel Discussion
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Presentations
More bang for your buck – Leveraging innovative finance and investment solutions, Carolyn Viney, Chief Executive Officer, Super Housing Partnerships.
What are the challenges? – Creating opportunity to optimise supply, the planning system and government partnerships, David Cresp and Ray Haeren, Directors Urbis.
Being brave – Creating a culture of ‘Yes’ in the WA, supporting innovative ideas to create tailored housing supply for WA’s diverse and growing population, Tanya Steinbeck, Chief Executive Officer, Urban Development Institute of Australia WA.
It’s a no brainer – Why Community Housing Organisations are the obvious partners to lead the delivery of new supply to achieve sustainable impact, Wendy Hayhurst, CEO CHIA National.
Next steps – Where to from here? – A synthesis from the panel around what WA needs to do to commit to be Commonwealth Funding Ready.
Panel Discussion featuring
- Chris Smith, CEO, Foundation Housing
- John Lysaught, CEO, Advance Housing
- Michael Palassis, Executive Director, Paxon Group
- Tanya Steinbeck, CEO, Urban Development Institute of Australia WA
- Wendy Hayhurst, CEO, CHIA National
Wrap Up and event close: Kath Snell, Shelter WA CEO
Meet our MC for the Afternoon
Amity James
Associate Professor Amity James is the Property discipline lead in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Curtin University. She is also the Deputy Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute – Curtin Research Centre.
An experienced housing researcher, Amity has developed a national reputation for excellence in housing research, in particular housing affordability and homelessness, residential mobility, ageing and housing and housing policy. She has extensive experiencing in qualitative research methods and draws on the lived experience to inform policy relevant outcomes.
Amity was the recipient of the Shelter WA Affordable housing and Homelessness Awards Research Award in 2020 and received a Highly Commended award for Industry Project of the Year in 2020 was awarded New Researcher of the Year in 2018 both from the Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University. In 2019 Amity was award the Teaching Excellence – Early Career Award by Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University.
Meet our Commonwealth Funding Ready in WA Symposium Speakers
Ryan van Den Nouwelant
Senior Lecturer UNSW, Lead author of Quantifying Australia’s Unmet Housing Need – A national snapshot.
With a background in social and design sciences, Ryan studied and worked on natural resource management in Southeast Asia before becoming an urban planner. He worked in strategic planning for local government before joining City Futures Research Centre in 2011. An early career researcher, Ryan completed his PhD in 2017.
Ryan’s PhD investigated the community conflict associated with the mixed land uses in and around Kings Cross, Sydney, framing it as a contested place identity. Other research interests include examining how urban design, renewal, and planning can improve housing delivery, social equity, and opportunity, and natural resource management in cities.
Bringing together the three levels of government policy and programs
Commonwealth Government
Nathan Dal Bon, CEO, National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC)
Nathan has been CEO of NHFIC since its inception and has more than 25 years experience in economic policy development and advising across government.
Nathan has held senior executive roles in the Commonwealth Treasury, and the departments of Industry, Innovation, and Science; Foreign Affairs and Trade; and Prime Minister and Cabinet. He has served as a non-executive director of AHURI.
In 2014, Nathan was Australia’s representative to the United Nations for the Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing.
Nathan holds a Masters in Public Administration and a Bachelor of Economics (Hons).
Western Australia Government
Garrick Allen – Executive Director- Strategy Planning and Policy, Housing and Assets, Department of Communities
Garrick is a property professional with over 15 years of experience working in multiple roles in the Western Australian property sector.
Building on a strong technical background in property valuation, Garrick’s skills have been further developed through practical application in property acquisition and property development including, contract negotiations of many complex transactions. These commercial negotiations
have spanned public private partnerships, large land developments, and apartment development projects.
Garrick’s strong focus on social and affordable housing is driven by his understanding of the positive impact that safe and secure housing can have on the disadvantaged. His project management and property background drive him to focus on deliverable social housing policy that can achieve positive tangible change for
Western Australians.
Local Government
Leanne Mitchell, Manager Community Strengthening and Social Planning, Brimbank City Council
Leanne Mitchell is a Local Government worker, writer, and anthropologist, convinced that we can all do better to make the world a fairer place.
Her work and study over the last two decades – in government, the UN, and the not-for-profit sector – has allowed her to respond to homelessness in many different forms.
Managing homelessness programs for the City of Melbourne and Brimbank City Council exposed Leanne to the scope and many limitations that Local Government faces in responding to street sleeping.
In 2022, Leanne undertook a Churchill Fellowship investigating how councils can respond to homelessness while balancing responsibilities to the wider community.
Her report, Everybody’s Business, focuses on the contribution Local Government can make towards ending homelessness and provides practical guidelines and case studies to assist Councils.
Meet our Afternoon Session Speakers
More bang for your buck
Carolyn Viney, Chief Executive Officer, Super Housing Partnerships
Leveraging innovative finance and investment solutions.
Carolyn is CEO of Super Housing Partnerships, which is a specialist investment manager focussed on increasing the at-scale supply of affordable BTR residential housing and ensuring access by ordinary working Australians to a range of housing choices. The Super Housing Partnerships platform seeks to unlock suitable investment opportunities by establishing partnerships with superannuation funds and other institutional capital providers, well credentialled private developers as well as Community Housing Providers.
Prior to joining Super Housing Partnerships, Carolyn held the role of Chief Development Officer at Vicinity Centres where she oversaw the growth of their $3 billion development pipeline and formulation of its mixed use strategy, and prior to that held a number of senior roles at Grocon including CEO, Deputy CEO and Head of Development.
Carolyn is Chair of the Advisory Board to the Victorian Government’s Office of Projects Victoria and a Non-Executive Director of the Walter + Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia’s leading medical research institute. She is a Non-Executive Director of The Big Issue and Homes for Homes, both of which are not-for-profit providers of employment and support to homeless, marginalised, and disadvantaged people, and an Advisory Board Member of Women’s Property Initiatives, a not-for-profit housing provider to women and children at risk of homelessness.
Carolyn is a current Division Councillor and former President of the Victorian Division of the Property Council of Australia.
What are the challenges?
David Cresp, Director, Urbis – Co Presenter
Creating opportunities to optimise supply, the planning system, and government partnerships.
David Cresp is well regarded as the go-to person to find out what is happening in the Perth property market.
He completed a Bachelor of Commerce (Property) in 1994 and for more than 25 years has been working to provide clients with key insights into all sectors of the Perth market.
David has an excellent understanding of all property classes and is particularly passionate about the residential market. He uses Urbis Apartment Essentials to monitor Perth’s apartment market and also focuses in forecasting residential trends in the Perth market.
David and his team have also had a strong involvement with advisory work on social and affordable housing with clients including DevelopmentWA, Department of Planning Lands and Heritage, Department of Communities, Foundation Housing and Housing Choices.
David is also on committees with the PCA, UDIA, and HIA.
What are the challenges?
Ray Haeren, Director, Ubris – Co Presenter
Creating opportunities to optimise supply, the planning system, and government partnerships.
Ray is an Urban and Regional Planner with more than 30 years’ experience in the government and private sectors in both Perth and regional WA. Ray has been a Director at Urbis for 15 years and most recently was the National Planning Director with over 300 planners in WA, NSW, Victoria, and Queensland.
A former President and current Board member of the Planning Institute of Australia, Ray has a keen interest in Australian Cities and their ability to respond to the ever changing environmental, social, and economic challenges. Ray also is the Presiding member of the Perth Local Development Assessment panel and has managed the local reactions to social housing and supported accommodation projects.
Ray has been a vocal advocate for informed decision making through quality research and the development of tools to better inform decisions. This has included leading research for the Federal Government on the impacts of planning requirements of housing and residential delivery in all jurisdictions and making recommendations for reform.
Being brave
Tanya Steinbeck, Chief Executive Officer, Urban Development Institute of Australia WA
Creating a culture of ‘Yes’ in the WA, supporting innovative ideas to create tailored housing supply for WA’s diverse and growing population.
Tanya will also join the final panel discussion for the afternoon.
Tanya has a wealth of property development industry experience in WA across the private, government and peak body sectors. Over the last 25 years, Tanya has built on her extensive industry knowledge and experience through her roles at Stockland, Mirvac, Property Council, Department of Communities and now UDIA.
Tanya uses her expertise to work collaboratively with government and other stakeholders to achieve a policy environment that enables industry to effectively deliver smart, sustainable and liveable communities. From having led the successful implementation of the $560 million Social Housing Investment Package for the State Government to working on the delivery of luxury apartments and master planned communities, Tanya understands the challenges and opportunities of delivering housing choice across the continuum.
Her passion for change in the mental health space has resulted in her
appointment as a Director on the Board for the Western Australian Association for Mental Health.
It’s a no brainer
Wendy Hayhurst, CEO CHIA National
Why Community Housing Organisations are the obvious partners to lead the delivery of new supply to achieve sustainable impact.
Wendy will also join the final panel discussion for the afternoon.
Wendy was appointed in March 2019 as CEO of the Community Housing
Industry Association (CHIA), the peak body representing not for profit
community housing organisations across Australia. Previously she led CHIA NSW – the state peak – for four years.
Wendy has spent almost her entire career in social and affordable housing, working her way from the front line to a non-executive directorship and senior managerial roles in a wide range of housing provider organisations, regulatory bodies, specialist consultancies and performance benchmarking organisations. She has in-depth knowledge and experience of the NSW, national and international community housing sector through her work with the NSW Regulator, in shaping and administering the National Regulatory System and her work in the United Kingdom.
Wendy has an Executive Masters in Public Administration taught through the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. She also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Housing awarded by the Chartered Institute of Housing in the UK.
Meet our Final Session Panel Speakers
Next steps – Where to from here?
A synthesis from the panel around what WA needs to do to commit to be Commonwealth Funding Ready.
Chris Smith
CEO, Foundation Housing
Chris Smith has been the Chief Executive Officer of Foundation Housing since September 2019.
Chris has over 20 years’ experience in commercial business having managed a Commonwealth statutory investment fund prior to joining Foundation Housing.
As CEO, Chris is focused on delivering new and innovative housing models for people on low to moderate incomes and improving the quality of tenant’s lives through the establishment of a positive tenancy framework.
Since becoming CEO, Chris led the establishment of Western Australia’s first affordable housing portfolio, delivering over 120 units for key and essential workers, and continues to advocate for new investment in social and affordable housing infrastructure.
Chris is the Chair of Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) National
Chris is married with two children and lives in Perth.
John Lysaught
CEO, Advance Housing
John is the CEO of Advance Housing, the Great Southern’s community housing provider.
With senior executive level experience in a number of service driven industries John has a strong and diverse mix of senior strategic and operational business and leadership experience. These areas of experience include cultural change management, staff development, multi-site operations expertise, community engagement, advanced financial management skills, occupational safety and health knowledge, developing and delivering strategic initiatives, and process improvement.
John has led a number of service organisations through major periods of transformation and growth in disability, specialist employment, mental health, aged care, peak advocacy, hospitality, and housing and this has given him a true grounding in the value and contribution of community services and assets to our social fabric.
John is a passionate advocate for housing being treated as the key pillar of a successful life and that therefore it should be treated as essential infrastructure for our communities.
Michael Palassis
Executive Director, Paxon Group
Michael is one of Australia’s leading financial and commercial advisers providing commercial, strategic and financial advice for social and affordable housing and infrastructure projects. Michael is the founder and Executive Director of Paxon Group, a national infrastructure and commercial advisory firm.
Michael is a trusted adviser to all levels of government, CHPs, financiers, investment funds and developers, and provides expert advice in the development, structuring, funding and review of social and affordable housing projects. He has advised on over $15 billion of new projects in the last 10 years, including the development of over 50 outcomes-based models across the housing continuum nationally.
Michael has developed and managed transactions for some of the newest and most innovative private sector involved models such as the establishment of the Commonwealth’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation and the rollout of the Housing Australia Future Fund.
Michael is best known for his market-firsts, innovative structuring and delivery models, including developing Australia’s first Build to Rent model and the shared equity housing model currently being used by most State Governments around Australia.
Over the last 20 years, Michael has advised on over $200 billion of projects across all States and Territories. Prior to Paxon, Michael practised in law and investment banking.
