MORE than 50 per cent of income in some Bendigo households is going towards paying rent, research shows, leading more people to seek emergency relief and financial counselling.
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Australia’s first rental affordability index, released yesterday, says regional low-income “non-family” households – often houses with a single occupant – are spending up to 58 per cent of their income on rent each week. Families are also feeling the strain.
“Family households would need to spend 35 per cent of their income in order to access a rental dwelling,” the index says.
Released on Tuesday, the index says households who spend 30 per cent of their income on rent are experiencing “housing stress”, affecting tenants’ ability to pay food, power, water and education bills as well as repay debt.
Jenny Elvey, financial counsellor at Bendigo Family and Financial Services, has noticed more people struggling.
“There has been a huge increase in the proportion of a client’s income going towards rent,” she said, adding some of the worst hit were on social security payments.
“It seems now that Centrelink recipients are going into private, not public, housing because of the shortage,” Mrs Elvey said. “A single mum with children might be paying 40 to 50 per cent of her income on rent.
“Sometimes they have to make a decision between food or rent – that puts huge stress on the children. They have to reach out for emergency relief.”
Bendigo Family and Financial Services provided emergency relief to more than 1200 people in a 10-month period last year.
The index, created by National Shelter, Community Sector Banking and SGS Economics & Planning, found that the average household in regional Victoria would have to spend 25 per cent of its income on rent.
Although Bendigo, overall, was on the affordable side, many renters still faced financial pressure, said Jenny Smith, Council to Homeless Persons CEO.
“The average median income in Bendigo is $513. When you’re paying $260 – the median price for a two-bedroom house – you’re still in dire straits,” she said. “At the last census in Bendigo, there were 281 people listed as homeless and there are more than 1,000 people on the public housing list.”
Australia needed a strategy to produce more low-cost housing, she added.
