A record number of Australians are living with severe rental stress even though there is no shortage of housing, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.
The number of dwellings per adult in Australia has increased since ANU researcher Ben Phillips’ 2017 paper revealed many parts of the country had a housing surplus.
Yet asking rents have surged 34 per cent since the start of the COVID pandemic and are forecast to increase by another 10 per cent this year.
And more than 640,000 households are in severe rental stress.
A Canberra renter, known to the inquiry as Samira, said she and her family were living in a dilapidated property filled with broken fixtures and had been unable to find a home that could accommodate their disabilities despite searching for the past eight months.
“We had no choice,” she said.
“The conditions weren’t great but it was within our budget.”
Maiy Azize, spokesperson for housing and homelessness organisation Everybody’s Home, says politicians need to reconceptualise the rental crisis.
“It’s widespread view in government that all we need is more supply and that will trickle down, put downward pressure and in this magical way, create affordable housing,” she told the rental crisis inquiry on Wednesday.
“(But) what we’ve been seeing is that wealthier people are able to use more housing and opting to live in smaller households takes up more space. Sometimes people buy extra homes and keep them vacant.”
The Australian Taxation Office recently revealed one per cent of investors own one quarter of all investment properties across the country.
“We’ve brought the wrong people in to support housing, and it’s part of why we are where we are now,” she said.
Ms Azize believes the solution lies with the government to both supply and distribute affordable housing.
It could both build and buy homes off the private sector, before redistributing them to people in need, which would increase the number of available affordable homes.
The federal government’s Housing Australia Future Fund, which is being held up in the Senate, outlines a plan for 30,000 homes over the next five years.
While Ms Azize believes it will help, it is not a long-term solution to the shortfall.
State and territories agreed to reforms at a national cabinet meeting this month, including a limit on rent increases to once a year and minimum rental standards.
But representatives from rental unions across the country believed the proposals did not go far enough.
“Some elements, like no-grounds evictions, are really foundational and we just cannot have a sensible regulatory scheme while those exist,” said Leo Patterson Ross, NSW representative for the National Association of Tenants Organisations.
Many renters feel they cannot report mould or maintenance issues in their homes.
“I feel like I can’t complain or make a fuss about anything because the landlord might evict me,” one tenant submitted to the union.
Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather said Australian renters were treated as “second class citizens”.
“With Germany now planning on freezing rents for three years, the prime minister should take note of what national leadership looks like and finally work with the states and territories at national cabinet to freeze and cap rent increases,” he told AAP.
There are eight million tenants in Australia, while 67 per cent of people own their homes.
Kat Wong and Tess Ikonomou
(Australian Associated Press)
