‘The system is broken’ Warwick terminally ill man and wife forced to relocate due to rental crisis

A man living with a terminal illness and his wife have been forced to relocate from Warwick after the rental market became too overpriced.

A Warwick man living with a terminal illness and his wife were forced to relocate out of their beloved home in the Rose City as the region’s rental market plummets to historic lows.

With only 23 rentals available in the Warwick property market and it sitting at a vacancy rate of 0.38 per cent, the community most vulnerable are feeling the pinch.

For David and Maggie Nemeth have resided in Warwick since they retired to focus on David’s health, and believed that it would be their long-term home while David deals with treatment for his terminal illness, B-Cell Myeloid Lymphoma.

Warwick's David and Maggie Nemeth are relocating to Toowoomba due to the rental crisis. (Photo: Michael Hudson/ Warwick Daily News)

But their life was turned upside down two months ago when they received notice that the owners of their property would be moving in and they had eight weeks to vacate the property.

David Nemeth said they had been completely priced out of the rental market, and out of the few homes available to rent in the Rose City, they couldn’t afford with their limited pensions.

“I noticed there was only about five or six comparable rental properties in town at one time and the majority of them are far out of our budget, the prices of rentals have exploded by easily $100 a week more than they were a year ago,” David said.

“It’s not the real estate’s fault or the owner’s fault, it’s just an unfortunate situation. There’s no one to blame, besides the system and lack of facilities to move into in town.

“We knew straight away we were priced out of the private market already.”

Warwick's David and Maggie Nemeth have been priced out of the Warwick housing market due to a failure of the system and are forced to move to Toowoomba. (Photo: Michael Hudson/ Warwick Daily News)

As soon as the pair received the news, they started ‘shaking the public housing tree’ to try and find any accommodation, otherwise they could be facing forced eviction.

“We went in every second day, rang and sent emails every single day just to try and get in the door and find a place to move to. I had to stand my ground to make someone actually talk to us, otherwise we’d just get lost in the system,” Mr Nemeth said.

David and Maggie had been in the public housing waitlist for four years, and it wasn’t until they sat down and explained their story to an agent who then explained there was nothing in Warwick, but found them a suitable place in Toowoomba.

‘The system is broken’: The rental crisis and flaw in the public housing system has made life for the Nemeth’s hell, and forced them to relocate from their community and lifestyle in Warwick. (Photo: Michael Hudson/ Warwick Daily News)

“We thought we’d be lucky finding anything. The place is smaller and only one bedroom, but they wouldn’t have done anything if David didn’t stand up and fight for it,” Maggie said.

“The public housing system is so broken, and it turns into an endless loophole,” David said.

“There’s no public available knowledge on where housing is available, so when you apply for your preferences on what area you’d like to move to, you’re flying blind.”

David and Maggie Nemeth are moving to Toowoomba due to what David calls 'a broken system' (Photo: Maggie Nemeth)

“This shouldn’t be happening here, we’re supposedly the ‘Lucky Country,’ right – and it’s only going to get worse for future generations,” David said.