Urgent action needed to address Brisbane rental affordability
Brisbane’s lowest income earners are being trapped in a poverty cycle as the number of affordable rental properties in the city continues at crisis level.
Anglicare Southern Queensland’s annual Brisbane Metro Rental Affordability Snapshot found that despite the oversupply of luxury inner city apartments and inducements such as gift cards and free internet to new tenants, there has been little impact on affordability at the lower end of the rental market.
Many families and singles on low incomes were spending more than 50 per cent of their income on rent.
It left them with little to buy food or to access health care or education.
Anglicare Southern Queensland Executive Director Karen Crouch said young people and those on Newstart are among the worst affected.
“Our survey of more than 8,000 rental properties found not one single property in Brisbane affordable and appropriate for a young person on Youth Allowance.
“Even a room in a share house was nearly three-quarters of their weekly allowance.
“Likewise, a single parent on Newstart with a child older than eight would spend 75 per cent of their income on rent,” she said.
Ms Crouch said the situation was also dire for those on aged or disability support pensions.
“A single person living on the aged or disability support pension would need to spend 63 per cent of their total income to rent a one-bedroom property.
“That’s a financial burden pushing people further towards poverty and homelessness.
“But this level of unaffordability also denies people a space of their own, where they feel safe and secure enough to manage all the other challenges of their lives.
“We all have that right, yet more and more people are missing out.”
Ms Crouch said federal, state and local governments needed to take urgent action.
“With Brisbane’s population expected to boom in the next two decades, housing affordability will become an increasingly pressing social issue,” she said.
About The Brisbane Rental Affordability Snapshot
Anglicare Southern Queensland has been producing the Brisbane Metropolitan Rental Affordability snap shot for almost a decade. In 2018, we looked at 14 different household types in relation to more than 8000 properties in the Brisbane metro area.
We assessed what percentage of the properties were affordable: spending more than 30% of a household income on rent is a commonly accepted indicator of rental stress. We also assessed whether properties were appropriate for each household type, including the number of bedrooms, or the suitability of various types of accommodation for particular family configurations.
The findings were, as always, sobering.
About the National Rental Affordability snapshot by Anglicare Australia
The Rental Affordability Snapshot is designed to highlight the lived experience of looking for housing while on a low income. It focuses on the Australian population who earn the least income – Commonwealth benefit recipients and minimum wage earners. Each year, Anglicare Australia agencies search local newspapers and real estate websites for rental accommodation across the country.
This and previous reports are available on the Anglicare Australia website: www.anglicare.asn.au
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