A new report has revealed a severe lack in affordable rental properties for welfare recipients – even with a temporary doubling of the JobSeeker allowance. Just 1.5 per cent of rental listings across the country are affordable for a person on JobSeeker, formerly known as Newstart.
When Canberra mother Amber Jarrett's relationship broke down last year, she couldn't afford to rent somewhere for herself and her three children.
The family was couch-surfing - sometimes at three different places a week.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought forward a number of social issues, shining a light on those who were struggling, even before the economy hit a wall.
A snapshot of rental affordability by Anglicare Australia shows there's a chronic shortage of affordable rentals for those on minimum wage and government payments. A survey of nearly 70,000 rental listings in Australia found only nine were affordable for those on the previous Newstart payments of $550 a fortnight. And none of those properties were in the major cities.
Since that's been doubled to the new JobSeeker payment of $1100 a fortnight, a person can still afford only about a thousand of the rentals analysed.