Housing for thriving in a post-COVID world

The unprecedented 2019-20 fires, storms and pandemic highlight and intensify ongoing structural flaws in Australian society. The now common refrain is that we are all weathering the same storm, but in very different boats. Some of us relax in luxury yachts while others cling desperately to floating debris. Among Australians' various experiences of the pandemic, the complexities of Melbourne's social-housing lockdown demonstrated a microcosm of the issues at play, throwing harsh light onto the ongoing inadequacy of federal support for social housing and raising concerns about the over- policing of certain communities amid the intensifying context of Black Lives Matter. However, the lockdown also revealed the resilience of the communities impacted and the generosity of vast social networks in providing rapid, well-organised support. Housing is a fascinating and vital perspective through which to engage with these issues. As a primary place of residence, a home"”for those who have one"”can foster self, security and family (however defined) but also threat, constriction and danger. Home, and our access to it and experiences of it, fundamentally shape and reflect our sense of self in the world, encoding our core relationships to place and to each other. When so many people under lockdown are perhaps more acutely aware of home than ever before, it is timely to consider how this foundational space might enable futures in which individual, societal and planetary well-being can thrive.