About

The Indigenous Infrastructure & Sustainable Housing Alliance (TIISHA) is a group of building industry professionals & researchers at the University of Technology (UTS). The founding members of TIISHA are UTS Indigenous and non-Indigenous building industry practitioners & researchers from the School of Architecture, the School of the Built Environment and the School of Health. Bringing together a range of expertise and professional capacity including architecture, construction management, quantity & building surveying, town planning, health and education, the team share a commitment to developing ‘health enabling infrastructure’ as a means to address underlying structural factors of Indigenous disadvantage. TIISHA recognises the vital role infrastructure and housing play in the social determinants of health and aims to reduce disadvantage among Aboriginal people with respect to life expectancy, child mortality, access to early childhood education, educational achievement, and employment outcomes.

TIISHA Professional Services

• Social Impact Evaluation

• Community Consultation

• Design & Master Planning

• Co-ordination of Specialist Consultants 

Context

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to housing and infrastructure that provides for the security, health and well-being of their family.  

However, this basic human right is not available to many Indigenous people in Australia.

A much higher proportion of the Indigenous population live in public housing than their non-Indigenous counterparts. And many Indigenous communities lack the basic infrastructure hat non-Indigenous communities have come to expect as normal.

The provision of decent and adequate housing and infrastructure for Indigenous Peoples has lags significantly behind that of non-Indigenous Australians.

Estimates predict that housing undersupply for Indigenous people will increase to 90,901 dwellings across Australia by in 2031 (65,000 dwellings in NSW). Only 42% of Aboriginal home ownership compared with 65% of non-Aboriginal households. Indigenous people make up 3% of Australia’s population but 20% of very low, low and moderate income households and research shows that closing the gap targets cannot be met without addressing this lack of affordable and quality housing for Aboriginal people.

The adverse impact of poor quality, unstable and unsecure housing health and well-being, employment prospect and education attainment of Aboriginal people has been well-known for many decades. Overcrowded and substandard housing is also a major factor in the spread of diseases in Indigenous communities around Australia and a strong contributing factor to poor mental and physical health in young people and children.

Mission

Our mission is to be recognised globally as a centre of excellence research, practice, education and policy in the area of Indigenous housing and infrastructure.

Vision

Our vision is that through our collaborative research, practice and education, that every Indigenous person in Australia will have access to the same standards of housing and infrastructure as non-Indigenous Australians.