Pensioner Christine McLaughlin feared homelessness after 30 per cent rent hike
Left with no choice but to move out of the home she’d lived in for the past five years, Christine McLaughlin wondered if living in her car was the only option left. This is what she wants other struggling renters to know.
When Christine McLaughlin’s rent went up almost 30 per cent she looked at her Honda Jazz and wondered how she would live in the back of the tiny hatchback.
After renting the same Centenary Heights home for more than five years, Ms McLaughlin was told in January that the rent was increasing $100 a week, something she would never be able to afford on her pensioner income.
So she was forced to look for a new home.
“It was weird leaving there because I was there for so long,” she said.
“It was like my place.”
A 2025 report by the Grattan Institute found that many pensioners who rent are struggling, and have far higher rates of financial stress than retired homeowners.
The study found three in four single retired women that rent in the private market live in poverty in Australia.
A reality Ms McLaughlin thought she might face after going to more than 20 open houses without any luck.
“That’s how you felt, that you were going to be homeless,” she said.
“I was looking at my car and I was thinking it’s so little.
“So you just panic on your own and go through all these things.”
Ms McLaughlin’s husband died when her kids were young and she had been living on her own since her kids grew up and moved out.
She said the process of finding a new rental felt impossible, especially by herself.
“No one is there to help you and you just panic,” she said.
“It’s very daunting.”
A real estate agent suggested getting support from the Toowoomba Housing Hub and Ms McLaughlin said she probably wouldn’t be in her current home without their help.
“You’re not so lonely like you’ve got someone else there,” she said.
The team at the Housing Hub helped Ms McLaughlin get onto RentConnect, a Queensland government program helping people find a rental.
The program covered Ms McLaughlin’s previous rent increase until she found her current house, also in Centenary Heights.
She said a lot of people might not understand how quickly someone could become homeless.
“You look at people different, you look at the homeless different,” she said.
“It could’ve been me.
“If I didn’t go to Housing Hub what would I be doing now, I’d be in my car or on the street.”
She said even with a long rental history she was getting turned down for houses.
“I never had a breach, I was never late to pay my rent and it didn’t matter,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean you’re going to get a place.”
She said she went to inspections where there were about 25 other people hoping to get the house.
Ms McLaughlin said she even started running into some of the same people at the inspections.
When she finally got her current rental she said couldn’t believe it, and said she wouldn’t have found it without the help of the Housing Hub.
“I feel like there’s a lot of people that won’t go (to the Housing Hub) because they don’t understand what they do there,” she said.
“The later you leave it the harder it is.”
Get support at the Toowoomba Housing Hub at 10 Russell St and at housing.qld.gov.au.
Originally published as Pensioner Christine McLaughlin feared homelessness after 30 per cent rent hike
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