Anglicare released their Rental Affordability Snapshot today, finding that housing affordability has continued to plummet to record lows.
Of the 51,238 rental listings surveyed:
- 352 rentals (0.7%) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage
- 165 rentals (0.3%) were affordable for a person on the Age Pension
- 28 rentals (0.1%) were affordable for a person on the Disability Support Pension
- 3 rentals (0%), all rooms in sharehouses, were affordable for a person on JobSeeker
- No rentals were affordable for a person on Youth Allowance.
The Mercy Foundation endorses Anglicare Australia’s call for Government to directly fund and provide housing itself, rather than leaving it to the private sector.
The chronic lack of affordable housing is creating bottlenecks in services and denying a safe and affordable home for families and individuals.
Housing is a human right. We know that living without a safe, stable and affordable home has severely detrimental effects that are long lasting. The current state of housing and homelessness in Australia is impacting heavily on marginalised groups, including older women, women and children escaping domestic violence and young people.
