Multiple families living together because they can't afford the rent
Date
January 20, 2015
The Age
Multiple families are cramming into single homes in Melbourne's suburbs because they cannot afford the rent by themselves.
This comes as a rising number of Victorian renters worry about losing their homes, in a real estate market where the median metropolitan rent has hit $365 a week.
In the past financial year, about 30,000 private renters asked the state's homelessness agencies for financial help to stay in their home – an annual increase of almost 30 per cent, the Council to Homeless Persons said.
"More and more people are really struggling," council chief executive Jenny Smith said. "High rents are pushing people to the brink of homelessness."
Low-income families in the western suburbs of Melbourne are among those finding it hardest to bounce back from unexpected bills and shocks.
The west has high rates of rental evictions, yet the region recently lost $100,000 in funding to assist the homeless and those facing eviction because of unpaid rent, the council said.
UnitingCare Werribee Support and Housing chief executive Carol Muir said some families and single people in the west could no longer afford to live on their own.
Ms Muir said up to three families were crowding into single properties, including Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers attempting to survive on reduced government welfare payments. She said some migrants from New Zealand and the Pacific islands were also living together, pooling limited incomes, because they are not eligible for government assistance.
UnitingCare Werribee Support and Housing does not normally provide meals or food for its clients. But in a concerning trend, Ms Muir said people were turning up on its doorstep hungry.
"More and more people are saying, 'I haven't eaten in a day or two, is there something that you can give me now?' " she said.
Homelessness services remain concerned the federal government is yet to commit funds to the next round of the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness.
The Andrews government said it would pilot an inclusionary zoning scheme requiring land sold by the Victorian government to include public or affordable housing.
Meanwhile, Housing Minister Martin Foley has promised to "fix the mess" in social housing. "We're stopping the selloffs and are focused on building and upgrading our housing stocks," he said.
The Council to Homeless Persons has asked the state government to bring in an affordable-housing strategy to increase Victoria's social housing stock to the national average of 5 per cent. It is expected more than 24,373 new homes would be needed to meet this target.
Ms Smith said more funding was needed to assist those who fell behind in their rent because of an unexpected crisis such as a car accident or relationship split.
"It's not in the interest of the community to have women and children sleeping in cars, kids not able to go to school and parents dropping out of study and work because they need to worry about having a roof over their head," she said.
There are 34,600 people on the public housing waiting list in Victoria. A Werribee mother said she was recently told she would have to wait 26 years before she would have access to a property.
"I thought, why should I put my name down," she said, "I'll be dead before that."
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