Queensland family of four homeless after 270 rejected rental applications

A Queensland mum has been forced to live in her car with her four children after having her rental applications knocked back almost 300 times.

A mum has been forced to live in a car with her four children for more than a month, after having hundreds of rental applications declined.

Shikera Maher has submitted 270 rental applications across Ipswich in Queensland since her leased ended in July, but the huge demand for rentals had seen her be repeatedly rejected.

The lack of available housing has forced Ms Maher and her four children, aged 13 to 18, to move between her friends houses every few weeks.

This continued for months up until February this year, when the mum decided that continually moving was too difficult given the size of her family and the fact that most of her friends only lived in small apartments.

This left the family no choice but the begin living out of their SUV, a situation that has now lasted for five weeks.

Shikera Maher and her four children have been rejected from 270 rental applications. Picture: Brad Fleet

Their living situation has been so stressful to the family that the children have had to stop going to school as they are unable to focus on lessons.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Ms Maher said she wouldn’t wish this situation on her “worst enemy”.

“It’s a very hard situation. We have to hang blankets on the car windows at night so people don’t look in,” she said.

The mum has repeatedly reached out to rental agencies to see if the continual rejections were due to a problem with her applications, but no such issue has been explained to her.

Ms Maher said she has the money to pay bond and rent is ready to move in but she just can’t get accepted for a home.

“I have the money to pay the rent and bond,” she said.

A four bedroom home in Ipswich averages about $430 per week, an increase from the $390 per week in December 2020.

The family has been forced to sleep in their car for more than a month. Picture: Brad Fleet

She told Daily Mail Australia that she is not eligible for public housing because one of her children, aged eight at the time, damaged their last home provided by the government in 2012 and she is still paying of the debt.

Ms Maher is on the waitlist for crisis accommodation.

Along with increasing rental prices, rental vacancy rates are at a severe low in Ipswich, at just 0.9 per cent.

Real Estate Institute of Queensland CEO Antonia Mercorella told The Courier Mail the rental vacancy rates were “historically low” in the lead up the recent floods, which then reduced rental opportunities even further.

“To put this into perspective, the REIQ classifies rental markets into three categories: tight, healthy, or weak and anything between a 2.6 per cent to 3.5 per cent vacancy rate is considered a ‘healthy’ rental market, anything below 2.5 per cent is ‘tight’,” Ms Mercorella said.

“We’re experiencing the perfect storm of low housing supply levels, incredibly high interstate and intrastate migration particularly to our regions, longer length tenancies as tenants choose to stay put for greater security and certainty, and fewer cotenancy arrangements as people want more space.”