Affordable rentals almost non-existent, report finds | ABC NEWS

Añadido: 2026-04-30

[00:00:00]Coming home is not something Jess Menis will ever take for granted after bouts of homelessness including some nights when she was forced to sleep in a public toilet. It's scary. It's you obviously feel shame.

[00:00:15]But it is a roof and four walls around you. Ms. Menis is now in stable housing but at $1,024 a fortnight her jobseeker allowance barely covers the $1,000 she pays in rent. Anglicare says her story is a familiar one across the country. The private rental market isn't working.

[00:00:36]It's not delivering housing affordability. The latest snapshot showed just one rental nationwide was affordable for a person on jobseeker.

[00:00:46]None at all were affordable for a person on a youth allowance. Less than 1% of private rentals were affordable for a single person on the age pension and only 15% of private rentals are affordable for a couple both earning minimum wage. There is also pressure on social housing. So in Southeast Queensland there's over 50,000 people which represents over 25,000 households or families who are actually waiting for social housing. In the meantime families live in substandard homes or in cars as Anglicare fights for change. The tax system of the discount on two capital gains of 50% has been driving this now for over 25 years. Anglicare is calling for that to be overhauled in the upcoming federal budget. Jess Menis says without change homelessness can be just one step away for anyone. It sucks. No one should be homeless in 2026 in a developed nation yet people are homeless and children are homeless.

[00:01:53]It's awful. All eyes will now be on the budget. Elizabeth Byrne, ABC News.