(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
A new report from the charity group Anglicare shows few affordable accommodation options are available for low-income earners in Australia.
As Hannah Sinclair reports, industry experts say a housing crisis could affect both health and employment.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Freda Ayim says there are weeks where money is so tight that she opts to feed her children and go hungry herself.
The Ghana migrant and mother of two pays $350 a week for a three bedroom house an hour south-west of Sydney.
She says she is lucky enough not to need public housing and receives a parenting payment.
But when more than half of her husband's weekly wage is spent on rent, she says very little is left for the basics.
"If we don't have a place to sleep, I find it really, really stressful and hard, because, if I don't eat, if I'm walking and I don't have food in my tummy, nobody will see it, but, with kids, sleeping rough is really different. So I'll say if I need to use the food money to pay the rent for us to have a cover, I think I will do that."
A report from the welfare charity group Anglicare suggests Freda Ayim's story is a common one.
The group's latest report shows, for most Australians on low incomes, finding an affordable place to rent is impossible.
Kasy Chambers is Anglicare's chief executive.
"The numbers, the low percentages, are sobering. They are grim. It is a crisis. It's an overused word, but it is one we have to use. We have to recognise that inadequate income is a severe barrier to secure housing."
The survey of 65,000 rental properties found only 618 across the country were suitable for a family of four on government benefits.
For single parents, there are even fewer options, and only 10 properties were found to be affordable for a person living alone and looking for work.
Kasy Chambers says state and federal governments need to implement a national housing plan.
"Housing and employment are inextricably linked, as are housing and health and housing and education. And if we don't get housing right, the others will become casualties."
Over the past decade, wages across the country have risen by 40 per cent but rental prices have risen by over 50 per cent.
The biggest increase has been in Sydney.
Housing Industry Association chief economist Harley Dale says a variety of factors are contributing to the rental affordability issue.
"We simply need to have a sustainably higher level of housing supply in the future than we have in the past, and that's about tackling difficult taxation issues such as stamp duty on property conveyances, such as poor land tax regimes, that all feed back down into a lack of affordable housing at the lower end of the income spectrum."
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