‘Broken, humiliated’ and only $27 in the bank: Rental stress hits in Queensland
Updated
Regional Queensland is the worst area in the country for rental stress, according to the latest housing data that shows a growing number of Australians are battling tighter household budgets.
Key Points:
- Mt Isa, Cairns, Brisbane’s south and north, and a handful of Gold Coast suburbs are listed as the worst for rental stress
- Queensland’s public housing waiting list is on the rise, currently sitting at 20,000
- 64 per cent of households are under financial stress, Queensland Council of Social Services estimates
The Getting Our House in Order report, released through Curtin University’s Economics Centre this week, compared figures from WA, NSW and Queensland and found 52 per cent of all renters were regularly struggling to meet housing costs.
In Queensland, 32 per cent of low-income households are suffering rental stress.
Households are generally regarded as being in housing stress if they spend more than 30 per cent of their income to keep a roof over their heads.
Key author Professor Alan Duncan said regions in Queensland were doing it tough because of a drop in incomes from a lack of full-time work and the high cost of living.
“Regional Queensland ranks the highest across all regional jurisdictions across all states and territories in terms of the level of both mortgage and rental cost burdens,” he said.
Queensland Statewide Tenant Advice and Referral Service (QSTARS) chief executive Penny Carr said low-income tenants were also in crisis in city centres.
Rental stress hotspots
- Regional: Mt Isa and Cairns (QCOSS Feb, 2019)
- Brisbane South: Durack, Inala, Richlands, Carindale and Mount Gravatt (ABS, 2016)
- Brisbane North: Aspley, Boondall, Carseldine, Geebung and Everton Hills (ABS, 2016)
- Gold Coast: Labrador, Southport, Coomera, Pimpama and Carrara (ABS, 2016)
The organisation has broken down the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics census data, from 2016, to reveal nearly 16 per cent of renters on the Gold Coast were struggling to pay their leases, with 12.71 per cent of tenants in Brisbane’s north and 12.55 per cent in Brisbane’s south also under pressure.
Anne Margaret O’Connor, 62, became one of those statistics after battling breast and ovarian cancer and struggling to work full time.
The former welfare officer and foster carer lived on her savings, but when the money dried up she could not afford to pay rent, so she lived in her van.
Last February, with no public housing available, the disability pensioner got moved into an old run-down home in East Brisbane.
The home is a private rental organised through the Queensland Housing Department, where Ms O’Connor pays $100 a week and the State Government subsidises the remaining $350.
Her bedroom is also the loungeroom, and the unit has no security.
She currently has $27 in the bank to get her through to next Thursday.
“I’m broken, I am humiliated. What else do you do? Just feel this utter despair?” she said.
“I Imagine I am not living here.
“I pretend I am in my nice apartment when I was working. I don’t see the tarp on the window I see the nice curtains I used to have.”
‘There is something wrong’ in Queensland
Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) chief executive Mark Henley said living affordability was the biggest issue his agency was seeing, particularly in regional Queensland.
Data from last year showed 64 per cent of all Queensland households faced some form of financial stress in that year, he said.
“It is at crisis level,” he said.
“Most of the money for a lot of people is going to rent, incomes are too low or they can’t get jobs.
“And if that is not a message to Government that they need to do something — there is something wrong.”
Jayasree Parthasarathy struggled to pay rent in Mt Isa for six years, with 60 per cent of the family income going towards it.
The mother-of-two runs a local program for migrant women and her husband works in the mines.
Ms Parthasarathy said over the six years, $82,000 went towards their rental.
She said they eventually saved up to buy a house when the market had a downturn, and are paying half in mortgage costs of what their rent was.
| Council Area | Number of people in rental stress | Percentage of population |
|---|---|---|
| Gold Coast | 68,544 | 15.41% |
| Brisbane North | 56,513 | 12.71% |
| Brisbane South | 55,805 | 12.55% |
| Redland, Logan | 42,513 | 9.56% |
| Gympie, Sunshine Coast | 41,625 | 9.36% |
| Moreton Bay | 33,670 | 7.57% |
| Ipswich, Lockyer, Scenic Rim, Somerset | 30,683 | 6.90% |
Cairns, cassowary Coast, Far Northern LGA’s, Tablelands, Torres and Torres Strait |
24,743 | 5.56% |
Supplied: QSTARS
In Brisbane, 51-year-old “Mel” is an unemployed teacher who has rented most of her life. She has been forced onto a Newstart allowance while she hunts for work.
She has applied for jobs but one recently said she was one of 620 applicants.
The single mum has two children still at home and pays 70 per cent of her allowance on rent for a small unit at West End.
She pays $350 a week on rent and is left with $150 for everything else.
“It’s impossible,” she said.
“Initially I had a little bit of savings from my last job, the contract ended at Christmas last year. It was a buffer but it was whittled away very quickly.
“It is a terrible situation to be in. I feel ashamed I suppose and humiliated and on top of that I am feeling quite angry about it.”
‘Entering a crisis situation’
The latest figures showed there are currently 20,000 people on the public housing waiting list, now called a “Registry of Need” in Queensland, up nearly 3,300 on the year before.
The Brisbane Renters Alliance are organising a “People’s Sleepout” at Post Office Square on June 21 to put the spotlight on the lack of affordable housing.
Alliance spokesman Greens councillor Jonathan Sri said people under rental stress went without food, health care and often had to move out of a suburb they’ve lived in for years, forced out by landlords jacking up the rent.
“The solution is simple, the problem is here in Australia we have treated housing as a commodity when it should be a basic human right,” he said.
Topics:
charities-and-community-organisations,
qld,
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