Adelaide single mothers reveal SA Housing Trust’s tough conditions on accommodation help

Seven women have come forward to explain the rules and conditions they had to meet for emergency shelter amid SA’s housing crisis.

Single mothers say SA Housing Trust’s requirements to allow them to stay in emergency accommodation are leaving them and their young children with nowhere to go but sheds, tents or backpacker hostels.

Seven homeless or formerly homeless mothers with young children have come forward to talk about the stress and intimidation they face from not-for-profits to apply for up to 20 private rentals a week and inspect up to seven private rYeentals week or risk being on the streets while awaiting public housing.

It comes after 29-year-old single mother Sarah Wade told The Advertiser was left living in a tent with her young children after being evicted from motel emergency accommodation in June last year after failing to attend the required amount of weekly private rental house inspections set by SA Housing Trust and enforced by Anglicare SA.

“I had requirements of applying for rentals up to 450pw which I could not afford” said Leah Pittwater with daughter Gwen, 1, who said she ended up to having apply for 350 houses in three months to stay in emergency accommodation.

Sarah Wade, with children Allysha, Logan and Domenic, is a mum of four who has been on housing waitlist and lives in a tent in her mum's backyard. Picture: Keryn Stevens

But Ms Wade said her ability to attend the required four inspections per week was limited after she got a casual job with carting hours.

A mother living in a motel said she was required to apply for 10 houses a week.

One of the seven women who spoke to The Advertiser on October 22, mother of two Leah Pittwater from Goolwa, said that when she spent three months in emergency accommodation she said was required to apply for 10 houses a week for three months and attend all inspections.

All of those were unsuccesful, she said, and came after months of rental rejections led to her to emergency accommodation to begin with.

She said she had shown the agency medical evidence when Covid prevented her from going to house inspections.

Stephanie Scott, who is currently living in a motel to “hide from an abusive partner” told The Advertiser faced an “overly onerous” requirement to apply for 10 houses to stay on a week-by-week basis. But she said she kept getting rejected in the notoriously tight rental market, leaving her in constant fear of possible eviction.

Single mother Stevie-Lee Bergman, who lives in a western suburbs shed, said Anglicare SA evicted her from emergency accommodation six months ago with a newborn baby and two other children under the age of six.

She said she the not-for-profit evicted her over a rule banning visitors when she let her children’s father stay the night after a stabbing in the motel complex left her scared for her safety.

Ms Bergman said an Anglicare SA worker evicting her told her to stay at a backpacker’s hostel.

She said now she had no choice but to live in an unlined shed with three kids now aged six, four and six months.

Nick Champion MP Minister for Housing and Urban Developlment. Picture: Mark Brake

A spokeswoman from the SA Housing Trust told the Advertiser people provided with emergency shelter paid for some of their costs but were expected to engage with services to find a “pathway out of emergency accommodation”.

She said exact weekly requirements were determined on case-by-case bases.

Minister for Housing and Urban Development Nick Champion told The Advertiser, “Like all government programs, emergency accommodation has eligibility criteria and stipulations which encourages people to find housing.”

Real Estate Institute of South Australia chief executive officer Andrea Heading said low housing supply in South Australia kept rental markets “incredibly tight.”

“At that $450 and under pricepoint, it’s really hard, but then the number of properties suitable to a family of five with four children makes that search even more difficult.”

Anglicare SA were contacted for comment.

Originally published as Adelaide single mothers reveal SA Housing Trust’s tough conditions on accommodation help