Tyler Redway
FOSTER parents are among those finding themselves homeless with average rental prices in Mount Gambier/Berrin rising by 11 per cent in the last year.
From the 2021 census, median rental prices for Mount Gambier/Berrin have increased from $190 to $220 compared to the 2016 census.
According to Anglicare’s National Rental Affordability Snapshot 2023, only 4.4 per cent of rentals were affordable for a single parent on minimum wage with one child under the age of five and another under the age of 10 state-wide.
A South Australian couple on minimum wage with two children of the same age groups only had 25.9 per cent of affordable rentals available.
Anglicare’s snapshot for South Australia also included affordability rates of 1.6 per cent for a single person on minimum wage, 3.5 per cent for a couple with no children on an age pension and 0.5 per cent for a single person over the age of 21 relying on a disability support pension.
ac.care chief executive Shane Maddocks said the organisation had seen an increase in people who were employed full time seeking help due to low income.
He said this was mainly due to how leases were ending or how new employees were not able to find a rental before starting work.
“We have pretty much already seen in the first six months the same number of people we have funded to support within a whole year,” Mr Maddocks said.
“We have our own staff whose leases were due and either the rent was increasing beyond what they could afford or the landlord wanted to do something else so they had to move out.
“We have foster parents who are homeless and these are people in our communities who we want to look after.
“There are also two carers who don’t have a fixed home to live in at the moment, they don’t have children living with them currently but we are unable to place children with them while they are in that situation.”
Due to the influx of people seeking help, ac.care has also needed to triage people based on their individual circumstances.
Mr Maddocks said with the increases in rental prices, the supply of properties was also decreasing as well as the supply of social housing.
“The amount of social housing available through the government supply is not there as much either because turnover has reduced so people are staying in those properties rather than moving onto private rentals or other options,” he said.
Anglicare’s Rental Affordability Snapshot suggested rental payments should not exceed more than 30 per cent of household income for people on low income, which Mr Maddocks said was becoming more of a common issue.
He also said the current JobSeeker payments were “definitely not” keeping up with the cost of living and they were “way below the poverty line”.
“We have a calculated poverty line in Australia which is the minimum to survive in a reasonable life and this rate has locked people into a life of disadvantage and it doesn’t motivate people to be able to look at alternate options,” he said.
“Rental increases above any increase in income are the biggest challenge, many people are moving from less than 30 per cent to far greater proportions.
“Although the cost of living has increased, their income hasn’t kept up at all so we are seeing a higher proportion of people required to use more of their income for housing than in previous years.”
He added the amount of people needing help from ac.care was at the worst it had been in three years.
An area which Mr Maddocks said was a concern for ac.care were people who were unable to leave an abusive household.
“We certainly have concerns for people who are in domestic and family violence situations where they don’t have an option to move out of an unsafe household,” he said.
“That is a huge concern for us that there is no safe alternative to escape their violent household and this applies to young people and partners of a violent partner.”
He added there had been more older women having to sleep in cars or tents
“Often this is because of the discrimination of superannuation policies in the past and a range of other policies which negatively impacted women as they got older but before they were eligible for a pension,” Mr Maddocks said.
“This problem has been coming for a long time as governments across the board have been effectively reducing the supply of social housing.
“I was pleased to hear the Premier say this stops in South Australia now and that the State Government will start to increase the net supply of social housing.”
Mr Maddocks said he would like to see more rental subsidies and increased social housing investment from the upcoming State Budget, as well as a potential increase in the JobSeeker allowance.
“We hope the Commonwealth Government will increase the JobSeeker allowance to lift people to above the level which just isn’t liveable,” he said.
“The government was able to do it and we saw a huge increase in people being able to afford medication, buy proper food, attend doctor’s appointments and not worry as much about paying the next fortnight’s rent.”