The Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek made the announcement in a speech to the Australasian Housing Researchers’ Conference in Sydney.

Minister Plibersek said the new Homelessness Research Agenda will increase the evidence base around homelessness and support the implementation of the Government’s White Paper on Homelessness.

She said the research agenda will fund wide-ranging and innovative research, improve existing data and invest in new data.

“The research agenda will also focus on understanding more about early intervention and protective factors that can prevent homelessness and the risks associated with chronic homelessness.”

“We need to understand the impacts of service design and government policy on homelessness within and across State and Commonwealth jurisdictions.”

Minister Plibersek also announced a thirty per cent increase in funding, more than $9 million over three years, for the National Housing Research program at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

“This increased funding will allow AHURI to move beyond social housing research to a whole of housing system research program.

“Building a broader evidence base across the housing system is critical to the development and implementation of the Government’s housing policies and the quality of the national housing debate,” she said.

AHURI Executive Director Dr Ian Winter welcomed the funding increase.

“With a proven track record since 2000, AHURI is well positioned to provide timely and well targeted research and to contribute effectively to the evidence base needed to respond to Australia’s housing challenge,” Dr Winter said.