Rental crisis: Mums and kids fleeing violence forced to live in cars due to lack of public housing

The lack of public housing in the state is causing families to live in their cars, as desperate renters share their horror stories in an inquiry into Victoria’s rental and housing affordability crisis.

Families are moving into their cars due to a lack of public and social housing, experts claim.

Mums with kids fleeing domestic violence are living in their cars due to a lack of public housing that’s been exacerbated by Victoria’s rental crisis.

The harrowing detail emerged alongside revelations First Nations people are being advised to hide their backgrounds on tenancy applications, as part of the second day of government hearings into the state’s housing woes on Wednesday.

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The Council of Single Mothers and their Children chief executive officer Jenny Davidson said 37 per cent of single mothers were living below the poverty line and there was a large cohort who were just above it but didn’t have “a spare cent”.

“Families are moving into their cars with their children, they’re going back to violent perpetrators right now because they cannot compete (for public housing),” Ms Davidson.

“Housing stock is so far below the numbers we need. We know how long people are on the waiting list for public housing.”

Ms Davidson said families were moving into their cars with their children.

Ms Davidson shared a story of one woman who had approached the Council that said they’d been in crisis housing for 11 weeks, and had applied for more than 100 rental properties with no success.

“Then (she) was moved out of that transitional housing; not moved out to anywhere just sort of: ‘your time is up’,” she said.

“I think we need to be thinking very laterally about what do we do for these families.”

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency director, office of the CEO, Sarah Gafforini said being Aboriginal, you were automatically “on the backfoot” when it came to rental properties meeting minimum standards and receiving respectful treatment from landlords.

“It’s often a box that we would encourage people not to tick,” Ms Gafforini said.
While 10 per cent of all new social housing to be created through the state’s Big Housing Build intends to be dedicated to Aboriginal Victorians, Ms Gafforini suggested the number of Aboriginal people on the waiting list was substantially disproportionate to what’s been allocated.

“We are anywhere between 20 and 50 per cent of the waiting list at any one time,” she said.

“So how do you make a choice out of all of those people that have been waiting.”

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Originally published as Rental crisis: Mums and kids fleeing violence forced to live in cars due to lack of public housing