Indigenous Australians suffer from less adequate and affordable housing than any other group despite the efforts of national and state governments, especially in the past 30 years, to improve them. Among the reasons for their continued poor housing are their poverty, the different values placed on housing by the more collectively oriented Indigenous people and their lack of control over the housing that has been provided for them. The Community Housing Program, under which government funded housing is provided and managed by local Indigenous housing organisations, has had some success in resolving these problems. A promising solution to the problems of the housing organisations may be found in umbrella organisations that are beginning to develop which can ensure both rent collection and accountability to funding governments and community control over housing design and management.
