Housing is a human right, but our laws do not reflect that. This failure has helped drive us into a housing disaster, where homes are treated as commodities rather than as the foundation of human dignity.

The housing system in Australia is failing because it is designed for profit, not people. It encourages us to treat housing as a business activity rather than as a means of meeting fundamental human needs.

I grew up in public housing in Moorabbin in south-east Melbourne in the 1950s and 60s. I do not romanticise that upbringing but it had one thing going for it: access to housing. While the housing commission was a somewhat ominous presence in the background, our large, working-poor family had a home. Low-income families like ours could afford to rent or even buy a basic house (or flat) without experiencing much or any financial stress. Homelessness was very low.

The system back then more-or-less met the needs of most people for affordable housing. There was a much better balance between demand for and supply of that kind of housing.

It was not perfect. For example, the supply of housing for the growing population was increased far too much by society sprawling outward rather than inward or upward. The system served First Peoples poorly. It took a long time for women and children fleeing violence in their own home to be given access to emergency housing. But human need, not profit-making, was the central purpose of the system.

Things could not be worse by comparison now. Ordinary working people and families cannot afford to buy or rent a home without parental help (which many don’t have) or going into crushing financial stress.

Proof positive of the failure of our housing system are the visibly rising numbers of older women sleeping in their cars; it shocks the conscience of the community that they should be compelled to do so. We should be ashamed of ourselves. I know that I am.

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Homelessness is high and not falling. Especially among older women, people living with mental illness and First Peoples. Yet we know from government action during the Covid era that it could be brief, rare and non-recurring.

For all the justified celebrations of individual initiatives, public and private, we are still barely catching up, and may never get there. The recently announced plan to bring forward the expanded first home buyer deposit scheme might help a bit, but the backlog of unmet need for affordable housing is so vast that even the increased funding and current plans fall well short of what’s required.

We are facing chronic housing problems decades in the making, systemic in nature and inter-generational in magnitude. The fairness and stability of our society are at risk now and into the future. We need to put something enduring into the system that represents the fundamental needs of people – which is why I am supporting a Victorian Greens private member’s bill to enshrine the human right to housing in law. This will not only help to fix Victoria’s chronic housing problems but will also help to ensure that they do not happen again. And it has national implications.

It would set a new foundation. It would ensure housing policy is guided by people’s needs, not profit motives, and it would guard against repeating the same mistakes in the future. It would be a gamechanger that would put strong pressure on the system to meet those needs always and for everyone.

It is going to take some big thinking and brave actions over a long period of time to turn the system around. But it can be done. The housing system is not failing because it is beset by so-called “wicked” public policy problems of the kind that cannot be solved. What is wicked is our failure to fix the problems.

The system is failing because we as a society are making the wrong kinds of choices, as we have over a long period of time. Recognising and implementing the human right to housing will help us make the right kinds of choices for which we will be a better society.

The Hon Kevin Bell AO KC is a former justice of the supreme court of Victoria, commissioner with the Yoorrook Justice Commission and president of the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal. He is the author of Housing: the Great Australian Right (Monash Publishing, 2024). He has worked with the Victorian Greens on the private member’s bill that will be debated in the Victorian parliament this week to enshrine the right to housing in the Victorian charter of human rights