Double rent assistance

In 2019, the charity Anglicare checked more than 69.000 properties on a weekend. Wanting to know how many of them were affordable and appropriate for people, mostly on government benefits.

How many do you think could be afforded by a single person on the JobSeeker allowance for example? 60,000, 35,000 or perhaps as low as 20,000? The answer, two. That is how many properties were affordable and appropriate, two.

Most people would agree that housing is one of the important basic needs.

The OECD notes that housing costs have skyrocketed. Whereas food, transportation, clothes and health have either stayed the same or even dropped in price, in OECD countries.

Making the argument that more must be done to address unaffordable addresses.

It is hard to fully understand given all this, why more is not done to address the issue.

The Australian Government could double Commonwealth rent assistance. It could do this virtually overnight as well.

It does not require building a single property, making changes to negative gearing and the resistance that comes from that. It does not require rent control, and the resistance that would come from that as well.

The problem is that the Commonwealth rent assistance standard amount is about $70 maximum per week, for a single person on the JobSeeker allowance.

How the government can think that is enough is hard to know.

The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare noted that rent assistance reduced rental stress down from 68% to 40%. That is good, but after help, 40% of people still find themselves in rental stress. Not the best outcome for a program meant to help people afford a place to live.

What makes this all harder to accept is how affordable it would be for the government. If they decided to increase the amount of rent assistance by at least double.

The budget outlay was about 4.4 billion in 2019. The doubling of rent assistance to 8.8 billion would still be less than many other benefits.

There is the pension, unemployment benefits, family tax benefits, and the national disability insurance scheme. All of them more expensive, and in some cases, far more expensive than a doubling of rent assistance.

This would almost hold true even if rent assistance was tripled. Only unemployment benefits would cost the government less than rent assistance tripled.

Given the importance of housing, it is a concern the government has not doubled rent assistance. Nor have they adequately expanded it to people not on government benefits. People, nonetheless, with a low income that still need help.

Increased rent assistance would mean that many properties would become affordable overnight. It means people could afford to move to better suburbs, better jobs, better schools and a better life.

There are stories on the housing affordability crisis across the world. One can find articles on the crisis in Australia, NZ, America, Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and more.

So, what is it going to take for countries to ensure affordable housing for everyone?

No one is arguing that boosting rent assistance is the only thing that will need to be done. It is something that can be done, however, and something that should be done.

There are not many countries, if any, that are building enough affordable housing. When they do build them {or try to} they can come up against the not in my backyard group. The people opposed to development within their self-proclaimed kingdoms.

So, simply arguing that governments should just build enough social housing, is not going to work.

What is it going to take for the government to boost Commonwealth rent assistance?

Can we agree that it should not take a pandemic to boost generosity? We have seen that with government increasing things like unemployment benefits, during COVID-19. By the way, the doubling of unemployment benefits still means many properties are unaffordable.

Can we agree we should not have to wait for an election year or for something to become an election issue?

Can we agree we should care about these things, even when we are not impacted?

It is not just people on benefits struggling to afford a place either. The Anglicare report also found people on the minimum wage struggled.

The number of properties for a single person on minimum wage, 1,552. Just 2.2% of all properties for rent the weekend Anglicare searched.

What about a couple with multiple income streams? Two people with two young kids receiving the minimum wage, parenting payment {partnered}, and both family tax benefits A&B?

5,422 was the number of properties, amounting to only 8% of all those on the market.

The people that did the best on the list, a couple with two young kids. Getting a minimum wage and just family tax benefit A. They had 16,666 properties across the country that were affordable and appropriate to them. This was just 24% of all properties that were on the market at that time.

So, when things are that bad, why is more not being done?

When the worst off are, a single over 18 on Youth Allowance, where there was only one property out of more than 69,000. The same for someone on Youth Allowance in a shared place, one.

Where, even the best off, have only 24% of properties that can be afforded.

When is the government going to do enough?

The 2020 Anglicare report has been released. A single JobSeeker can now afford more than two properties, it is now nine on the standard payment. The best off on the list, places have dropped from 24% to 22% of all properties.

Arguing that people should just help themselves, simply is not doable.

Where the market has not solved the issue. Why hasn't the government done more to help?

Doubling rent assistance is arguably the most doable of their options. The one that may do the most good, the quickest, and encounter the least resistance.

I assume we can all agree, people should have decent and affordable places to call home.