TRANSCRIPT
The federal government is spending more on housing than it has done at any point in the last four decades.
So why is it so hard to find a rental property - or pay for the one you're in?
A new report by Anglicare Australia paints a damning picture of the options available to people on lower incomes in Australia.
Surveying more than 45,000 (45,115) rental listings available in March, the Rental Affordability Snapshot for 2024 concludes affordability is the worst it's ever been.
Anglicare's CEO Kasy Chambers.
"We're now spending more than we have ever done in the last 40 years on housing through our Commonwealth government - much, much more. 540 dollars per capita we spend on negative gearing, capital gains tax, and Commonwealth Rental Assistance. And in that same time, we've seen housing affordability halve."
The report found the average rent is now $200 more per week than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
And across the country, there is not a single property that someone receiving the government's Youth Allowance could afford - even in a sharehouse.
"But also even if you were on the minimum wage, working full-time - so that's all those people that serve us our coffee, that have opened the shops that are open already this morning, that are working on the security at the airport, agricultural workers - anyone who's on that minimum wage. You still would have less than 1 per cent that were affordable for you as a single person, 0.6 of a per cent."
For a single person with a child - like 23-year-old Michaela - finding a rental property can feel impossible.
A lack of rental options has forced Michaela to live more than 700 kilometres from her young daughter, while she tries to find something more long-term.
She told SBS's The Feed that sending her to live with her own mother didn't really feel like a choice.
"Sending her away was very, very hard. But also I know that I'm doing that for her, not for me. It's unfair for her to be moving around and living in places that aren't necessarily a great environment for her."
The graphic design graduate currently pays $250 a week for a studio apartment in Newcastle without an oven or a stove - and recently learned that amount is set to increase by $30.
Michaela is looking for a place she can live with her daughter in Sydney, where she thinks there will also be more opportunity for work.
But recently when she did find a room in a sharehouse, the housemates retracted the offer after learning she had a daughter.
It's happened more than once.
"Being rejected over and over again makes you feel unwanted. Basically, I just feel defeated against the world and I feel like it's meant to feel like a free country here. And for us it just doesn't, there's no options. And it's not my fault, it's just the way that things are. And it sucks that the world is the way it is, and there's literally no options for people like me. So yeah, it's really hard at times. "
Emma Greenhalgh is CEO of National Shelter, an organisation that advocates to improve housing outcomes for the millions of low-income Australians like Michaela.
She says hardship is spreading.
"If you have a low or a very low income, regardless of whether you're a young person, middle-aged, older - it's really quite dire. We're also obviously seeing that the housing crisis is engulfing more moderate income households as housing becomes much more expensive in the private rental market and home ownership is particularly out of reach."
She says the Anglicare report exposes a "diabolical" situation.
National Shelter has joined an alliance of property, housing and social services organisations calling for the government to double its Housing Australia Future Fund commitment.
They're asking for a commitment of $20 billion in the upcoming federal budget, to help meet the pledged goal of 1.2 million new homes by 2029.
"If we don't deliver these homes, then the housing crisis just magnifies and metastasises to something that I don't think we can really contemplate. And I don't think that that's being an alarmist."
The depth of the crisis is reflected in new data from Victoria, which shows a 14 per cent jump in the number of people with jobs who are accessing homelessness services.
The analysis was commissioned by the Council to Homeless Persons, which also found women accounted for more than 70 per cent of employed people who were seeking assistance.
CEO Deborah Di Natale says there's a number of factors that contribute to that statistic, including the gender pay gap and more women doing unpaid care for children and older relatives.
But family violence is by far the biggest driver, with 9 out of 10 women [[87 per cent]] who approach specialist homelessness services fleeing a violent home.
"The real solution here is building more social houses so that when a woman with her young children is approaching a homelessness service and saying 'we really need somewhere safe to live', we can send them somewhere and that is a safe home."
The Council to Homeless Persons is advocating for the Victorian government to pledge $5.6 million in the upcoming budget to extend the state's Private Rental Assistance Program.
It helps remedy rental arrears and avoid evictions.
Ms Di Natale says it's an example of a "quick win" for government that should accompany long-term change.
"We're all about preventing homelessness, not just ending homelessness and it is much easier to actually step in and prevent it than trying to address it once people have experienced long-term homelessness because that puts a massive strain on the health budget and the justice budget. So it really is a win-win to get in early and address the issue."
Anglicare's Kasy Chambers also says it's time for the government to take a hands-on approach and shift the focus away from private investment.
"Investors have done nothing illegal, they've gone into this as they were incentivised to do. So we need to phase out some of these tax concessions, make sure that we're actually aiming them at affordable housing. To do that we actually need governments back into building housing. Not just trying to incentivise private organisations or small landlords to do so, but actually building it themselves."
Deborah Di Natale says she's confident the scale of the growing crisis is too big for the government to ignore.
"And I feel positive about this area because we have a roadmap to end homelessness. So it's not one of those problems that's intractable and we don't know what to do. We know exactly what to do."
