Anglicare rental affordability report shows properties now almost impossible to find for some demographics

Rental properties in Adelaide are now almost impossible to find for certain demographics and the city’s housing crisis has hit dire levels, an alarming new report has found.

It is almost impossible for single people on income support to find an affordable rental property in Adelaide and the city’s housing crisis “is even more dire than before COVID”, a new Anglicare SA report shows.

The Anglicare Australia 2021 Rental Affordability Snapshot, released on Thursday, found that out of 1788 private rentals advertised in Adelaide on March 26, there where no affordable properties for single people on the JobSeeker allowance.

There were also no affordable properties for single people aged over 18 on Youth Allowance. Just seven properties were identified as affordable for JobSeeker-reliant singles with a child over eight – and 18 properties for singles on a minimum wage.

The situation was also dire for families with both parents on JobSeeker, as the report found just four per cent of properties considered affordable.

Properties are considered affordable when they cost less than 30 per cent of a household’s income and appropriate if they have enough bedrooms for adults and children.

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic last year, JobSeeker recipients received a $550 fortnightly supplement on top of the $565 base rate, taking the total payment to $1115. The supplement was gradually scaled back until the end of March, when it was dropped and an increase of $50 added to the base rate.

The rental crisis in South Australia is now more dire than before COVID hit, the Anglicare report has found.

A single person with no children now receives $620.80 a fortnight. Latest CoreLogic data, released this week, shows the median rental in Adelaide cost $419 a week, up 4.9 per cent over the past year.

The study, done in conjunction with the Australian Alliance for Social Enterprise at UniSA, also found no properties were affordable for household types reliant on an age or disability support pension.

Twenty-eight per cent of properties were suitable for households living on the minimum wage. Anglicare SA executive general manager of housing Michelle Gegenhuber declared rental affordability at “crisis levels” after the end of supplement payments.

“The increased COVID-19 JobSeeker payments received by many in 2020 saw some 25 per cent of properties become affordable for South Australians doing it tough,” she said.

“With the supplement now gone, and only a minor permanent increase to the JobSeeker payment, the crisis we’ve seen for years in Adelaide has returned and it is even more dire than before COVID,” she said.

Ms Gegenhuber said there was “very little hope” for people who relied on income support, and called on the State and Federal Governments to “tackle housing affordability in their upcoming budgets”.

“Alongside a greater permanent increase to income support payments, we desperately need to build more social and affordable housing to ensure families aren’t left without a roof over their heads,” she said.

“A co-ordinated, systemic and holistic approach is vital if we’re to address the housing crisis and ensure everybody has a place to call home.”

A State Government spokeswoman said $400m had been committed to build 1000 affordable homes in SA by 2025 to help more people into home ownership and free up rental properties. She said the State Government’s Private Rental Assistance Program had supported more than 56,000 low-to-moderate households access private rental in 2019-20 and eligible South Australians in private rental can also receive up to $185 per fortnight from the Commonwealth.