Social housing plea with rent now unaffordable for essential workers across most Australian regions

Abstract

Santana is a skilled photographer and never imagined she would become one of the 20 per cent of Australians who have experienced homelessness.

Last year, Santana (not her real name) spent three months sleeping and living on the streets on the Gold Coast and now lives in crisis accommodation in Brisbane.

New data from Homelessness Australia shows the federal government cut investment in social housing and homelessness by $1 billion over the past decade, a period when Australian rental prices jumped 30 per cent and house prices rose by 50 per cent.

A suburb of new houses in Sydney Federal Housing Minister Michael Sukkar says the government is investing in social housing.(Flickr/Scott Lewis/CC BY 2.0)

Everybody’s Home is calling on the federal government to invest more in social housing.

“The federal government seems to be asleep at the wheel about housing affordability for renters,” Ms Colvin said.

“What we really want to see is the federal government step up and invest in more social housing, bring the states along with them … but it’s the federal government that has the fiscal firepower to really make a difference.”

Ms Platt said low-income earners had been pleading for help for years but it had fallen on deaf ears.