‘Consider all options’: Emergency accomodation manager on Townsville housing mess
An emergency accommodation manager at the coalface in Townsville says nothing should be off the table to solve the housing crisis, including rental caps.
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Rental caps need to be considered in the midst of Townsville’s housing crisis, according to an emergency accommodation manager in the city.
Those comments come after a report commissioned by the Queensland Council of Social Service released on Monday.
Nowhere in Queensland has seen a bigger percentage spike in the price of a two-bedroom flat than Townsville since mid-2018, the report shows.
Co-author, professor Hal Pawson, said a skilled person emigrating to Australia would have previously seen Townsville as a “rational choice” to find lower cost housing.
“But much less so now, I would say.”
The rental price of a two-bedroom Townsville flat increased 42.8 per cent from mid-2018 to the end of 2022; $245 to $350.
Family Emergency Accommodation Townsville general manager Mandy Thompson said the unprecedented circumstances mean every option has to be on the table.
The Townsville organisation has 31 units for temporary accommodation in Townsville, and charges family rent based on their income.
The first priority for Ms Thompson is more social and affordable housing.
However, a rental cap should be considered, she said.
Researchers from UNSW found about 300,000 Queenslanders are experiencing ‘housing insecurity’, as rising rents hit lower-income families, while there is a shortfall of social housing.
In the wake of the report, premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state government was “very seriously” considering introducing a price cap on private rentals.
However, in response, a string of economists said interfering in the market was bad policy and would make the housing situation worse.
The percentage of people being declined specialist homelessness services in Queensland overtook the nationwide average - 35.9 per cent versus 32.3 per cent - in the 2020-21 year, it says in the QCOSS-commissioned report.
“This may indicate that Queensland agencies are facing a disproportionately growing challenge in meeting local needs,” the report writers say.
SHORT TERM RENTALS
The report writers say ending a tenancy to enable ‘conversion’ of a property to a short term rental is “another questionable component of the partially reformed Queensland rental regulation regime”.
This could be seen as an illegitimate loophole, especially without short term rental regulation that limits the financial attractiveness of the business model, the researchers say.
Real Estate Institute of Queensland data shows Townsville’s vacancy rate at December 2022 was 1 per cent.
A spokesman for short term rental company Stayz said the company had 375 homes in the wider Townsville region.
Stayz director of corporate affairs, Eacham Curry, said a commonsense, statewide approach for the Queensland state government would be a compulsory registration scheme and code of conduct for all travellers and operators.
Airbnb head of public policy for Australia and New Zealand, Michael Crosby, said as the [QCOSS] report suggested, changes to short term rental rules were far from a fix for rising housing unaffordability across the state, which had much broader and longer-term structural drivers.
Short term rentals generally comprised a “tiny proportion” of the overall property market, Mr Crosby said.
Airbnb too supported a registration scheme that would allow the government to make data-driven decisions, as well as a code of conduct scheme, he said.
“Airbnb is focused on growing the tourism pie for everyone by making travel more accessible and more affordable for more people.”
Airbnb declined to say how many properties it had in Townsville, citing commercial sensitivities.
The UNSW report writers say while short term rental regulatory reforms may have the potential to “somewhat relieve” rental market stress in certain areas, such changes are far from a panacea for rising housing unaffordability across the state - a policy challenge which, as we have shown, has much broader and longer-term structural drivers.
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Originally published as ‘Consider all options’: Emergency accomodation manager on Townsville housing mess
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