‘Nowhere left to live’: Essential workers locked out of Aus rentals

Essential workers are being pushed into the red across most of the country, with affordability down to extreme single digits in most places. Source: Anglicare Australia.

Alarming national heatmaps warn essential workers like nurses, cleaners and hospitality workers can’t afford rent in major parts of the country, sparking new calls to reform investor tax breaks.

Anglicare Australia analysed more than 51,000 rental listings and tested them against the wages of 16 frontline occupations, finding the very people who keep the country running are being priced out of their own communities.

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Firefighters are among those who face a rapidly shrinking pool of rentals compared to salaries. Picture Thomas Lisson

Essential ambulance workers in SEQ see the worst affordability level across Brisbane’s East and the Gold Coast at 0.3 per cent in their budgets. Source: Anglicare Australia.

Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said “essential workers keep our communities running, yet many can’t afford a place to live”.

She said “we need tax reform that puts people in need of a home, not just investors, at the centre of our housing system”.

Data from Anglicare Australia’s Rental Affordability Snapshot found rental properties essential workers could afford were down to extreme single digit percentages nationally now – less than one per cent for hospitality workers or early childhood educators (0.8pc), while construction workers, nurses and aged care workers ranged from 1.1-1.7 per cent, with ambulance workers having the biggest percentage open to their budgets at 2.3 per cent or just over 1,000 of the surveyed homes.

In places like Sydney’s Northern Beaches and Sutherland it is down to zero for those with professions like ambulance workers, with the worst they see in Brisbane at 0.3 per cent in the Queensland capital’s east and also on the Gold Coast.

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Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers is calling for more dedicated social and affordable homes to be built urgently.

Hospitality workers also face a grim rental situation across the capitals.

The outlook is grim, Ms Chamber warned with rents rising faster than wages, pushing more aged care workers, nurses, cleaners, ambulance officers and hospitality workers to the brink of severe housing stress and even out of their communities entirely.

“Shortages in care, health and emergency services are being made worse by the fact that workers cannot afford to live near their jobs. The private rental market is failing even people on average incomes.”

Anglicare Australia is calling for more dedicated social and affordable homes to be built for workers and families that need them most, adding that the country also needs stronger protections for renters, including an end to no-cause evictions and limits on unfair rent increases.

“Every community relies on these workers. They should be able to live near their jobs, not be forced out by soaring rents. These maps are a call to action for governments to invest in real solutions.”

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