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ABC News
21-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Homelessness under Albanese government 'worst in living memory', peak bodies warn
Homelessness rates, particularly for women and girls, have worsened under the Albanese government's first term due to service underfunding and a lack of affordable housing, according to the industry peak body. The issue has reached its "worst levels in living memory", Homelessness Australia said, with analysis of data from homelessness services across the country showing women and girls fleeing domestic violence are the most affected. The number of people accessing homelessness services each month has increased by 10 per cent since Labor was elected in May 2022, but for women and girls, the increase has been by 14 per cent, the data shows. Despite the government's attempted focus on the housing crisis in its first term, Homelessness Australia's chief executive Kate Colvin said commitments made to social housing have not hit the mark and are condemning vulnerable families to homelessness. "Even with those commitments, the proportion of social housing is still going to continue to fall," she said. "We need government to do a lot more. "This is a huge problem." It comes as a new report from housing lobby group Everybody's Home has found social housing has declined to around 4 per cent of all homes, down from 4.7 per cent in 2013, with the group's chief executive, Maiy Azize, calling on the Albanese government to deliver more affordable rentals. "The government mustn't take for granted the Australians who voted them in with the hope of making housing more affordable," she said. Homelessness Australia's analysis of Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing data shows an additional 72,000 people were turned away from services in 2023-24 — and three in four were women or children. Ms Colvin said the shortage of reasonably priced rentals meant not only were people being forced into homelessness, but women ready to move out of a domestic violence or homelessness refuge had nowhere to go. Last week, the ABC revealed the Treasury department advised Labor soon after it was re-elected that its signature pledge to build 1.2 million homes over five years to address the housing crisis "will not be met". Housing and Homelessness Minister Clare O'Neil told the ABC the government has invested more than $1.2 billion in crisis and transitional housing. "We're acutely aware of just how complex the challenge of homelessness is, which is why we continue to listen to people with first-hand knowledge right across the homelessness sector," she said. "In this new term the government has appointed a special envoy for social housing and homelessness, Josh Burns, to work with the sector on a variety of complex problems affecting different communities." Ms Colvin said while she appreciated the government had committed funding towards building more homes, in the meantime, homelessness services were turning away more and more people. "The homeless services haven't had increased funding because the housing crisis has gotten worse," she said. "They just have more people coming." In the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern, the 200 beds at the Women's and Girls' Emergency Centre are full every night. Its chief executive, Nicole Yade, said her staff have the "horrendous" task of choosing between desperate families whenever a bed at the refuge becomes free. "It's an impossible choice," she said. She said frontline workers she had spoken to found it easier to transition clients into an affordable rental five years ago than they do now. The lack of social and affordable housing meant women and their children are often taking up beds for months longer than necessary, because they cannot afford anything in the community, Ms Yade said. "They get stuck in the refuge," she said. "It doesn't feel like there's been enough change for us on the ground when we're delivering services to women who are escaping family and domestic violence." Ms Colvin said the government's commitments to housing for this term of parliament are still "not where we'd like them to be." She is calling on the government to complete a national plan to end homelessness, invest more in homelessness services and grow social housing to 10 per cent of all dwellings. The government began consultation on a national housing and homelessness plan in 2023, to determine a policy vision for the sector. The ABC understands that work is ongoing.
News.com.au
15-07-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Nine homes in three years: Australia's rental crisis laid bare
Jess Preston was just 17 when she moved into her first rental – an arrangement so dodgy her landlord insisted on cash-only payments, banned cooking indoors and ultimately faced the tribunal after Ms Preston took legal action. 'I was young so I didn't know these weren't things that were not OK to have as a condition,' Ms Preston said. After escaping an unsafe home as a teenager, Ms Preston, now 22 and studying at university in Canberra, has moved nine times in just three years, spending part of that time in shelters and on the streets. Despite finally landing in a stable home, the cost of rent has left her making impossible choices just to stay afloat. 'I usually skip lunch or breakfast, I went to the chemist for cold and flu tablets this week and I could afford it this time but I never know about next time,' she said. 'I always have in the back of my mind, will I have to drop out of uni again and go back to full-time work? 'The worst thing is, my story isn't uncommon.' Ms Preston is far from alone. A new report by national housing campaign Everybody's Home lays bare the worsening rental crisis in Australia. The Out of Reach report, released on Wednesday, reveals average weekly rents in capital cities have surged 57 per cent from $473 in 2015 to $742 in 2025. The sharpest increases came just in the past three years with a rise of 34 per cent. Meanwhile, the proportion of social housing has plummeted to a record low of 4.1 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent in 2013. In cities once considered affordable, the situation is even more dire. Rents in Adelaide have jumped 81 per cent over the last 10 years, with Hobart not far behind at 76 per cent. 'This is a national crisis that is now pricing out everyday people right across the country. This report paints a clear picture of the damage that has been done, and without change it will only get worse,' Everybody's Home spokeswoman Maiy Azize said. 'As the federal government has walked away from providing housing, more and more people are being forced into an already strained private rental market which then pushes up rents right across the board. 'With more Australians renting than ever before and being priced out of the private housing market, the need for more low-cost rentals is essential.' Ms Preston has fought for years to remain housed while juggling studies and scraping by on Centrelink payments of just under $900 a fortnight, less than her $1000 rent. 'The worst thing is it's also not just rents increasing, it's the cost of moving multiple times,' she said. Ms Preston has fought back, starting petitions to change the dispute handling process, and facing landlords at the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. But the system, she says, is stacked against renters. 'Sometimes tenants need to know their rights better than agents,' she said. 'If you have a concession card you get your fees covered but just because someone doesn't have a concession card doesn't mean they can afford to go to the tribunal. 'And even if the landlord pays the fine, they can just kick you out at the end of the lease so no one wants to face that.' She believes many Australians underestimate how widespread housing insecurity has become. 'People look down on those on Centrelink, but most of us don't want to be on it.' Everybody's Home is calling on the federal government to act decisively to set ambitious social housing targets and make proper investments to fix the crisis. 'If we want one in ten homes to be social housing, we need to build an extra 54,000 social homes every year for 20 years,' Ms Azize said. 'We need government action that matches the scale of the housing crisis. Australian governments have stepped up and mobilised during other emergencies, from Covid-19 to natural disasters, 'Housing should be no different.'
