VMHPAA lodges support for City of Sydney housing consultation, calling for homes that protect wellbeing, dignity and community life
- Shane Warren
- Apr 9
- 2 min read
MEDIA RLEASE
For Immediate Release
9 April 2026
Today, Shane Warren, Chair of the Vocational Mental Health Practitioners Association of Australia (VMHPAA), formally lodged the Association’s support for the City of Sydney’s current housing consultation, while urging that future housing growth be approached as social, civic and wellbeing infrastructure, not simply as a numbers exercise.
In its submission, VMHPAA supports the need for more homes across the City of Sydney, particularly in well-located areas close to transport, services, employment, education and public open space. The Association also supports a stronger focus on permanent social housing, genuinely affordable rental housing, diverse housing types, and the infrastructure needed to ensure growing neighbourhoods remain liveable, inclusive and connected.
Mr Warren said housing policy must be understood as a mental health and community wellbeing issue as much as a planning issue.
“Housing is not simply about yield, height or dwelling counts,” Mr Warren said. “It shapes stability, belonging, recovery, family life, safety, ageing, workforce participation and a person’s ability to remain connected to community. If we want a healthier city, we need to treat housing as part of the social infrastructure that makes health and wellbeing possible.”
VMHPAA’s submission welcomes the City of Sydney’s willingness to plan strategically for more homes, while also making clear that growth must be matched by design quality, heritage sensitivity, public benefit and essential infrastructure.
“The right answer is not to resist housing. Sydney absolutely needs more homes,” Mr Warren said. “But growth must be done well. New housing should add to neighbourhood life, not strip it away. It should be well-designed, connected to transport and services, supported by green space and community infrastructure, and it should make room for a broader range of people to continue living in the city with dignity.”
The Association’s submission also calls for a stronger commitment from government to increase the supply of permanent social and affordable housing, arguing that market delivery alone will not meet the needs of lower-income households, renters, older people, families, students, Aboriginal communities, and people who require greater housing support.
“Too often, housing debate gets reduced to supply alone, as though any dwelling outcome is automatically a good one,” Mr Warren said. “A healthy city needs a mix of housing types, a serious investment in affordability, and an understanding that secure housing is foundational to resilience, participation and recovery. More homes matter but so does who they are for, how they are built, and whether people can actually live in them.”
VMHPAA said it supports a future housing agenda for Sydney that is ambitious, humane and place-based, one that increases supply while protecting the qualities that make neighbourhoods socially sustainable and recognisably human.
Media Contact:
Shane Warren, Chair
Susan Sandy, Secretary
Philip Armstrong, CEO
Comments