Nurse Housing Shortage a National Crisis Only Government Can Fix

Nurses and midwives in Australia face significant housing affordability challenges, limiting their ability to live near the hospitals where they work. The issue has reached a crisis point, adding to the strain on health workers as they campaign for better pay and conditions. Anglicare Sydney group executive of housing, and former NSW planning minister, Rob Stokes knows better than most the scale, the difficulty and the impacts of the housing problem. The latest Anglicare Rental Affordability Snapshot, released in October 2025, showed that just 1.5 per cent of rentals across the country were affordable for nurses. In metro areas that number is even lower; in Sydney’s Northern Beaches and Sutherland Shire, for example, there were precisely zero affordable rentals. Stokes’ organisation is aiming to grow bed numbers under management from 700 to 4000 over the decade across key worker accommodation as well as aged care and emergency housing. Development will form a key part of that growth, including a 35-storey affordable tower at Merrylands , but the recent acquisition of a 20-home building at Kingswood, within walking distance of Nepean Hospital, shows the commitment Anglicare has to fix the issue. “We were competing with developers who were going to basically strata and sell it off as market housing,” Stokes told The Urban Developer . “And that’s a great thing to do, in one sense, but it was a net loss for the affordable rental market. In the crisis we’re in, that is a pretty crazy public policy outcome.” ▲ Anglicare is developing a 185 affordable home project at the site of St Paul’s at Bankstown. “There’s a huge paradox there, because almost by definition, homes that are accessible to jobs are going to be less affordable because there’s going to be high demand for them,” Stokes says. NSW Nurses and Midwives Association general secretary Michael Waites says that early career nurses may be willing to share rooms or commute in order to get experience under their belts, but senior practitioners can’t afford to make the same sacrifices. “On the whole, housing is unaffordable near their place of work, and for many, that means they’ve got to do long commutes. And we’re not just talking about home ownership here. We’re talking about rental affordability as well,” Waites tells The Urban Developer . “We’ve got to fix this and that’s why we need government to move at scale, because nothing else is happening quick enough.” The union is deep into a protracted battle in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission and sees housing as a core industrial relations issue. “Payrises are obviously essential, but the size of the payrise we would need to achieve in order to lead to a comfortable retirement was massive. And so what else needs to happen now, in order for someone to have a comfortable retirement?” Waites says. “The current superannuation system is built on the premise that most people will own their own home. And that’s clearly not going to be true for the future generations of nurses and midwives in NSW. “Which is why we’re fighting for a range of things, not only higher wages, not only reform to superannuation, but also housing.” ▲ Thirdi’s Hume Place will devote the entirety of its 15 per cent affordable home component—more than 100 apartments—to nurses and healthcare workers. While nurses and midwives are broadly respected by the community, affordable housing developments are not always, and NSWNMA has heard from developers that there can be pushback against them. In Crows Nest, where nurses are currently paying 58 per cent of their salary in housing or commuting up to 50km, Waites is supportive of Thirdi initiatives to provide essential worker housing . “That’s a great model. We can see that it can be done. And where developers have approached us for above 15 per cent affordable housing as an example, then we look at ways where we can support them. But the volume of that is just not enough.” Low-profit housing authority models in Auckland and Vienna provide good examples, according to Waites, while NSW Government efforts such as the $450-million Camperdown dive site project are a welcome start. “The problem with these is that they are not at the scale needed. Our view is that the only way we’re going to get scale is if government recommences building houses en masse. “It’s just an obvious solution. It will only create the volume that we need. It will reduce costs, and because of that big uptick in building it, will generate the trades, the apprenticeship positions that we so desperately need in this country.” Waites, who sits on the board of State Super, also supports superannuation investment, but hurdle rates and other challenges are limiting the scale of action. “Workers’ capital going into building affordable housing, for workers to live in, is a very good model … but when I speak broadly within the superannuation industry, there are still barriers for them to invest more in, and that needs further conversation.” HESTA head of portfolio management Jeff Brunton has found innovative solutions to applying his members’ funds to their housing challenges, while still generating return. About 70 per cent of HESTA’s members are in health and community services, and the super fund has commissioned research that found the stress and physiological ageing caused by their rental situations can be equivalent to a pack-a-day smoking habit. “Our members are statistically overrepresented in every one of the dire housing affordability statistics,” Brunton tells The Urban Developer . “That creates broader systemic risk to the economy and long-term investors like HESTA due to reduced productivity.” Applying a total portfolio approach to build-to-rent models, HESTA used its housing development vehicle Assemble in completing the 362-home Swift Walk in Melbourne’s Kensington. The five-building complex includes 272 affordable and social homes within walking distance of major hospitals. ▲ Swift Walk is a majority affordable development that still provides investors with an asset that makes sense for their portfolio. With the majority of members in balanced growth options looking at 5-to-10-year return timeframes, real estate with blended returns including both yield and capital growth complete the portfolio. “When we then look at the design of the real estate sleeve, we think about a number of things. Primarily, about diversification,” Brunton says. Providing good housing for nurses, close to hospitals, provides investors with lower occupancy turnover and vacancy costs. “We’ve been thoughtful in the design of the whole model to ensure that the tenant can love where they live, and will live there for as long as they can.” For Stokes, keeping people housed can be as important as getting them into houses in the first place. “Insecurity of tenure is a massive concern to me, and this is one of the challenges with schemes like the National Rental Affordability Scheme, or even the density bonuses provided by state governments. They’re great, but they only operate for 10 to 15 years, and then you’ve got a problem to deal with then,” Stokes says. In the end, it will come back to government to supply decent, reasonably priced homes for nurses, close to work . “The nature of affordable and particularly social housing is: it doesn’t make much return. There’s far better ways to use your property, and that’s why government or the public needs to provide some incentive to do it,” Stokes says. “Because part of having a flourishing and healthy democracy is making sure that everyone has access to a safe place to call home. That needs to be subsidised. It’s worth the cost.”

Nurse Housing Shortage a National Crisis Only Government Can Fix

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