NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 2025
With your support, 2025 has delivered more positive impact — more houses fixed, more local jobs, and stronger outcomes for communities. Our advocacy, research and training work has also continued to strengthen community housing providers and improve long-term results.
Much of our work since the June newsletter has been behind the scenes — steady background work and many small wins, some of which we highlight here. Across 288 projects, we’ve surveyed 10,925 houses and employed around 3,000 Indigenous staff – These are not just numbers, these are people’s houses and lives.
We are still supporting vital sanitation projects in Nepalese schools with ongoing maintenance. Thanks to everyone who has purchased a book where 100% of the sales go towards this work and to those who have donated directly to this work.
Thanks for backing this work across Australian communities and across the world. We wish you a safe and happy end to the year and look forward to working with you in 2026.
– The HH Team
Below is a snapshot of what HH has been up to and project updates…
Team Training & Workshops
We have an ongoing focus on training up people across the country to ensure we have multidisciplinary, local, community-based Team Leaders.
Team Leader Training was held in the NT in October alongside our current NT East Arnhem Region projects. This will allow more NT-based people from community organisations to be skilled up and work on the Housing for Health projects.
Local Team Feature
Local Heroes Continue making a Difference in Our Community
Image: Kevin in his new role with Rirratjingu (RAC)
We featured Rirratjingu (RAC) in our last newsletter, and the good news continues.
One Housing for Health (HfH) project in Northeast Arnhem land is now coming to an end. The final Survey–Fix took place in October with 16 local community staff, including Christopher and Kevin. Their skills and hard work stood out during the project — and they’ve carried that momentum forward.
Using HfH as a stepping stone, both are now employed with the Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation’s Landscaping and Maintenance team, continuing to keep local spaces safe, clean and well cared for.
Their day-to-day work is making a real difference for families, visitors and the whole community. Christopher and Kevin show how local jobs build strong community outcomes — healthier living environments, pride in place and steady employment that supports families. RAC celebrates their continued work and the positive impact they bring every day.
Our work formally accrediting the experience and skills team members gain under Housing for Health, will only add more value for community members on their pathways of skill development and employment.
Dan & Emily | Housing for Health (HfH) Volunteers Reflection
Image: Dan & Emily Volunteered for 4 weeks across 3 projects in the NT, they made great additions to our brilliant Yolgnu teams
“We were really impressed with the housing for health methodology, efficiency and planning that goes into the projects. With large numbers of local people collecting quality data, taking ownership of the project, fixing minor problems as we moved through the community and then seeing trades following up immediately (sometimes within the hour!).
This was really amazing and gave people the confidence that this wasn’t just another ‘housing check’. Things were happening.”
Read Dan and Emily’s Reflections here.
Housing for Health (HfH) Projects
HfH projects continue across Australia and internationally.
In Australia, we currently have 14 projects underway with survey-fix work being done on 556 houses.
Northern Territory (NT)
NT projects continue under the NT Government’s Healthy Homes program.
Across the East Arnhem region, across 3 projects — a total of 263 houses have been checked and fixed this year. Before licensed trades even arrived, the survey teams had already fixed over 1,050 small but important fixes that help houses work better straight away.
More than 70 jobs have been created across these projects in 2025 alone.
NT Health’s Healthy Homes Officers have been closely involved, helping link housing and health. Their Environmental Health summaries and Value-Add ideas / projects have strengthened the work. An example of this was the Healthy Homes Community clean up week in September, supporting households to clean their wäŋas (houses) and yards ahead of the pest controller.
Healthabitat and Project Manager Bobbie Bayley acknowledge the essential collaboration from local community liaisons, organisations and stakeholders. Support from NT Health, Ramingining ALPA team, Miwatj, Nhulunbuy Anglicare, Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation, the Barawun centre, Gumatj Aboriginal Corporation, the local trade teams, and the local DHLGCD department has been critical to the success of these projects.
Image: Survey Team made up of local community workers, Architect Team Leader Owen Kelly, NT Health Healthy Homes Officer and Miwatj Public Health Team, working together
New South Wales
In partnership with NSW Health, 8 HfH projects are underway with survey-fix underway or completed in 227 houses. NSW Health continues to pursue important value-adding work alongside the projects, on key issues of climate adaptation and energy consumption.
Read more about the work of NSW Health, here.
Image: Survey Team members working hard on Yaegl Country in the Northern Rivers to Kamilaroi Country in North West NSW
Western Australia (WA) Update
Image: Spinifex Country, from the air
We are very excited to share that in the last few months, we’ve completed Survey-Fix 1 in a small remote community in the Wheatbelt/Goldfields region of WA, supported by WA Department of Housing and Works R&M funds plus the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF). Under the first year of HAFF the funding was split evenly across the four states (NT, SA, WA, QLD), resulting in a total of $25 million each.
Alongside these projects, we are also working with the community and WA Government on the design and implementation of a pilot cyclical maintenance plan for when the project finishes. This means regular, scheduled trade visits to keep essential health hardware working.
The model is still being developed but the approach has strong potential to be used in other communities across WA and, eventually, nationwide.
Bringing ‘Housing for Health’ to Mparntwe Architecture Conference
In September, Director David Donald spoke at Mparntwe: When You Come to Another Country, a 90-person gathering in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) hosted by the Regional Architecture Association.
The program wove together conversations on Country, climate, culture, design, and infrastructure, offering a grounded look at opportunities and tensions facing the region today.
David shared insights from three decades of work linking housing, health, architecture and repairs & maintenance in remote NT communities. As he put it, “We’ve come a long way — but we’re not yet there when it comes to functional housing.” That sets the tone: design and aesthetics are part of the story, but the backbone of housing must lie in consistent functionality, safety, and health.
Read more in our recent News Item.
Image from David’s presentation: Early housing 1950’s-1980’s in Central Australia was often poorly designed and built with little to no insulation, health hardware or consultation
Training community members to check trade work Ep. 2
We spoke about this in our last newsletter, and the momentum continues.Between Survey–Fix 1 and Survey–Fix 2, we’ve again completed the next step in the HfH methodology in another remote NT community — led by local workers who build on the skills they learnt and developed during Survey-Fix 1.
This stage is important. It shows the value of growing local expertise inside communities and inside households. Workers learn how to check tradespeople’s work, spot defects, carry out basic fixes and know who to call when something isn’t working and pass this on to the households. Tenants being able to identify issues early, report accurately, or even fix simple problems until trades arrive is an area that has long been undervalued.
Our local teams continue to show just how strong this capacity can be. Their interest, attention to detail and commitment to keeping houses working is evident in every project. This is community-led housing health in action — practical skills, local jobs, improved agency, working houses to improve health.
Image: Team member removing and cleaning a basin aerator to improve water flow and pressure after a plumber inspected it ok. This is a small but important thing in communities with ‘hard’ bore water with high levels of sediment
International Connections
In November, Healthabitat met with The Housing for Health Incubator, NSW Health, Menzies, The Fulcrum Agency, SA Housing and Professor Lisa Tobber — Engineer and Principal Research Chair in Disaster-Resilient Buildings, and Professor of “Build Better” at the University of British Columbia.
The group came together to look at practical ways to make houses cooler, more resilient, safer and healthier — especially with the uncertainty of the changing Climate. The workshop shared science, on-the-ground experience and international lessons that can help improve housing, health and heat resilience.
Such partnerships help us deliver real solutions in communities — improving health through improving the living environment. Get in touch with us!
Other items of interest
2024 Australia Trachoma Surveillance Report
The 2024 trachoma surveillance report has just been released, and there is good news.
Although Australia is still the only high-income country where trachoma is found, mostly in remote Aboriginal communities, the latest data shows real progress:
- South Australia has now been declared free of endemic trachoma, with no active cases since 2022.
- National trachoma levels are now low enough that the disease can no longer be considered a major public health concern, meaning Australia can apply for official WHO recognition from 2025.
Trachoma has not gone away. Children and young people in remote communities are still affected. And this progress will not hold unless we keep fixing the health-hardware that stops trachoma spreading — taps that work, showers that run, toilets that flush, and houses that stay clean and safe.
Advocacy: “Roadworthy” Housing. Regular servicing keeps cars working, why not houses?, by Healthabitat
Research/Resource: NT Shelter Webinar, ‘The heat will get here before the housing’– Churchill Report by Jon Swain
Read more in our recent News Item.
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