The Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), the $10 billion centrepiece of Labor's efforts to fix the housing crisis, is designed to give a transformational boost in funding to the social and affordable housing sector.
But a lot of the time, the money goes to housing providers that offer rental accommodation which is affordable in name alone.
The issue has prompted independent MP Nicolette Boele to bring together developers, community housing providers, investors, councils and researchers at a roundtable at Parliament House on Friday to push for a national definition of what "affordable housing" actually is.
"We don't have a single definition of affordable housing, which is a complete headwind to so many things, including finance," she told AAP.
"Institutional investors don't have a single definition to make an investment bankable, to give that certainty for measurement and delivery."
Most affordable housing schemes set rents at a discount to the market rate.
But when the median rental in Sydney costs $841 a week, according to data firm Cotality, even a 25 per cent discount is out of reach for many low-to-medium income earners.
For Lou Housego, finally securing a place in an affordable housing development proved anything but affordable.
The 69-year-old nurse was offered a place in Sydney's North Shore promising an affordable home at 75 per cent of market rate, but the rent would still have set her back $650 a week.
"How is that affordable? Even on full-time pay, that amount of money will take about half of my pay," she said.
Although Ms Boele's electorate of Bradfield in Sydney's north is one of the wealthiest in the country, extortionate rents make it difficult for workers to find affordable accommodation.
She backed an ACTU push for one in 10 new homes to be public housing - funded directly by the government and tied to the resident's income, not market rates.
The scrutiny on whether affordable housing provides value for taxpayer money compared to public housing is growing.
In a survey of her constituents, Ms Boele found that only 56 per cent of people supported affordable housing provided by private developers, while 83 per cent supported new housing where the government was the main proponent.
On Thursday, the Senate established an inquiry, led by Greens housing spokeswoman Barbara Pocock, into social and affordable housing.
It will also examine the HAFF, which Senator Pocock called "too small, too slow and too complicated".
A separate inquiry she led into intergenerational equity found public housing needed to be lifted from the current four per cent of total stock to at least six per cent.
"The notion of affordability is fuzzy," Senator Pocock said.
"We need a model of affordability which goes to the per cent of income."
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