The agency was established pursuant to the Housing Act 2001 (NSW).
Housing NSW provides a range of services including public and community housing, housing for people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, support services for people with special needs linked to government and non-government agencies, private rental assistance and subsidies, advice and assistance for home-buyers, the development of affordable housing, community regeneration, and development and regulation of social housing policies.
It was also responsible for slum clearance in the 1960s and the replacement of terraced housing in the Waterloo area with high rise public housing towers.
In the 1970s, the now-discredited American Radburn style of public housing was used, especially in the south western suburbs of Sydney.
Phyllis Le Cappelaine Burke served on the commission for twenty years, from 1945 to 1965, and advocated for policies to improve the lives of women in public housing.