New report says rentals are unaffordable for those on Youth Allowance

The authors of a new report into the rental market say the housing crisis is the worst it has ever been.

Transcript

00:00For over 15 years, Anglicare Australia has been putting out this rental affordability

00:06snapshot and basically what they do is they look at rental listings in the private market

00:11across Australia and they figure out how many of these homes are actually affordable for

00:16someone on a low income.

00:19So when we're talking about affordability, looking at studies into cost of living, they

00:24say that a household on a low income that spends more than 30 percent of their budget on rent

00:32may end up experiencing financial stress.

00:34So affordable home is where the cost is less than 30 percent of the household income.

00:42So if we look at these numbers, when they looked at about over 51,000 rental listings and they

00:48found just such a tiny amount were actually affordable, it paints quite a bleak picture

00:54of our rental market here in Australia.

00:56So for a full time worker on the minimum wage, so they're bringing home less than $1,000 a

01:03week, there was a little over 350 rentals across the country out of that 51,000 odd number.

01:10For people on disability support and the age pension, also just a few options.

01:16For someone unemployed and looking for work, so receiving the JobSeeker payment, there were

01:22only three affordable homes.

01:25And all of those three were share house options.

01:28So you just got to think for a parent on a JobSeeker payment, not many options there.

01:35And then for a young person receiving youth allowance, the report found that none of the 51,000 odd

01:42rental listings were actually affordable.

01:45So the report's authors are saying this is creating a really desperate situation for everyday

01:51people around the country.

01:53Just a couple of weeks ago, ABC actually released some data showing how quickly the rise in rents

02:00is outpacing the increase in our incomes.

02:03In Perth, it's said that since the pandemic, the average rent, the median rent actually rose

02:09five times more than the average income.

02:14And it's a similar story in other cities like Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane.

02:20So it's really difficult to kind of imagine what some people are going through just to

02:25fulfill that basic need of secure housing.

02:28And because of this, the authors of the report are basically calling on the government to step

02:33up.

02:34They're saying that the focus can't continue to be on increasing the supply of homes in the

02:39private rental market and that whoever comes into government next really needs to commit

02:44to building 25,000 new social and public homes every single year for the next two decades

02:50if they want to do anything to addressing this crisis.