Some Sydney workers have been forced out onto the streets despite being employed as Australia’s housing crisis continues to worsen.
Only a year ago, Kerry was paying $1200 a week for her two-bedroom apartment in Waterloo.
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Now, she’s living in Enmore Park in the city’s west alongside more and more people who simply cannot afford short-term accommodation or soaring rents.
“I always thought of homelessness as someone with a cardboard placard,” the former admin worker told 7NEWS.
“My best option right now is just to take care of myself until I can afford rent again.”
Mission Australia staff are saying the crisis is the worst it has ever been, according to chief executive Sharon Callister.
“We have an absolute housing emergency on our hands,” she said.
Prop Track senior economist Eleanor Creagh told 7NEWS that in April 2023, the share of rental properties listed for less than $400 a week hit a record low.
In Sydney, it has dropped from 21 per cent to just nine per cent over the past three years.
The Federal Government is currently trying to get a $10 billion housing package through parliament, however those on the frontline say social housing is needed now.
“We have 57,000 households on the waiting list,” Homelessness NSW CEO Trina Jones said.
While Kerry now calls Enmore Park home, she warns that no one is completely safe from the current housing crisis.
“Homelessness is just one bad situation away from everybody,” she said.
– With reporting by Annie Pullar