Rental affordability 'crashing' during pandemic
Anglicare Australia Executive Director Kasy Chambers says rental affordability for families struggling through the pandemic would drop drastically if JobSeeker payments were revised down to pre-pandemic rates. She told Sky News 77,000 homes were tested and revealed affordability for people on government support schemes and the minimum wage had crashed between March and August. Ms Chambers said for a family of four where both parents were on JobSeeker at the current rate, only five per cent of properties would be available to them. The affordability rate would then drop to 1.5 per cent after JobSeeker payments were revised down after September, and then further to 0.4 per cent if the unemployment payment returned to its pre-pandemic rate. “What we see when that happens is we do see people falling into homelessness,” she said. “On the way there we also see people who are spending 50,60 and sometimes 80 per cent of their income on their housing and what we see when people are doing that is they’re making choices that are very sensible choices for them but its choices about whether the roof goes over their head of whether food goes on the table. “This really is a bit of a wakeup call to us that it is tough, the rental market isn’t just getting cheaper and cheaper and easier.” Image: AP
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Anglicare Australia Executive Director Kasy Chambers says rental affordability for families struggling through the pandemic would drop drastically if JobSeeker payments were revised down to pre-pandemic rates. She told Sky News 77,000 homes were tested and revealed affordability for people on government support schemes and the minimum wage had crashed between March and August. Ms Chambers said for a family of four where both parents were on JobSeeker at the current rate, only five per cent of properties would be available to them. The affordability rate would then drop to 1.5 per cent after JobSeeker payments were revised down after September, and then further to 0.4 per cent if the unemployment payment returned to its pre-pandemic rate. “What we see when that happens is we do see people falling into homelessness,” she said. “On the way there we also see people who are spending 50,60 and sometimes 80 per cent of their income on their housing and what we see when people are doing that is they’re making choices that are very sensible choices for them but its choices about whether the roof goes over their head of whether food goes on the table. “This really is a bit of a wakeup call to us that it is tough, the rental market isn’t just getting cheaper and cheaper and easier.” Image: AP
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