From crisis accommodation to housing crisis

MARY* knew she had to enter Australia’s dreaded housing market. Her property hunt was worse than anyone imagined.

This is the real face of Australia’s housing crisis.

For two years Mary* lived in temporary charity accommodation after escaping a destructive relationship. But as she reached the end of her time limit she knew she would have to enter the dreaded Sydney property market.

Not to buy, heaven forbid — she doesn’t even own a car. But to find any place to rent that would fit her and her three kids.

For six months she looked at more than 50 houses and put in application after application but got nothing.

“I’m not joking, some of them were horrific — some of them had laundries in the bedrooms!”

Often she knew she had no chance even before she applied.

“When I handed in my application form for a house they would just grab it with their fingernails and through clenched teeth say ‘thank you’,” she tells news.com.au.

“I remember my mother saying ‘I don’t think you’ll get that house’. Those were the things that were distressing.

“That was my low point.”

“Mary” in the kitchen of the house she finally found.

Mary was being helped out by the St Vincent de Paul Society but even they couldn’t work miracles.

Yet then something happened that looked a lot like divine intervention.

On what she reckons was about her 56th inspection, a very modest red brick house in Sydney’s south west, nobody else showed up.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was trying to pinch myself — thinking: ‘Is this really happening?’”

Mary is one of the lucky ones, finally getting a place to live on her 16th formal application. She knows others who have put in 50 or 60 applications to no avail.

While we know a generation of Australians is struggling to buy their first home — and many are coming to accept they never will — there are many more below that who are struggling to even get a roof over their heads.

Vinnies NSW CEO Jack de Groot says housing costs are the single biggest driver of poverty and disadvantage in Australia and an estimated 875,000 households are experiencing housing stress.

Around 2.5 million people — 13.9 per cent of the population — live below the internationally accepted poverty line.

Meanwhile, it is estimated that the current supply of social housing only meets 44 per cent of the need and in 2016 the public waiting list was set to grow by 60% to 86,532.

“Research shows we need 100,000 new social and affordable homes in NSW over the next 20 years to combat the current 10-year waiting list for social and affordable housing,” Mr de Groot tells news.com.au

“Vinnies is calling on Commonwealth, state and local governments to work together with institutional investors and the not-for- profit sector to ensure that affordable and safe housing is available for everyone.”

The charity is calling for a change to planning laws so that at least 15 per cent of new residential developments is set aside for affordable housing where rent is less than 30 per cent of income.

Mary has opened a new door in her life — literally.

While Mary couldn’t get a social housing property, the government is helping to subsidise her rent, which is $650 a week and has just been hiked to $690.

And for the first time in a long time she is looking forward to the future with her two daughters and a son.

“I started again,” she said.

“I closed the door on my old life and then I just began again.”

Luckily for her another door has opened. The question is, how many other people are still waiting outside?

*Name has been changed.