Minimum wage families can afford less than 10% of NT rentals according to housing snapshot

Staggering figures released by Anglicare show that families on minimum wage can afford just a fraction of Territory rentals, triggering calls for a major shake-up of how essentials services are funded.

Just under 10 per cent of Northern Territory rentals are affordable for a working family on minimum wage with two children, according to a new housing crisis snapshot.

Anglicare NT’s annual rental affordability report released last week also revealed that parents on Job Seeker, as well as Youth Allowance recipients, could not afford any of the Territory’s approximately 570 listed rental properties.

Living on your own is also an unattractive option, with just three affordable rentals for a full-time, single worker on minium wage.

“Affordable” is defined as no more than 30 per cent of the weekly household budget.

Forty seven-year-old Palmerston woman “Jane” said after leaving a violent relationship several years ago, she was struggling to pay her $500 a week rent and care for her young child while also working.

She said she spent just under half her weekly paycheck on rent and was recently forced to cancel private health insurance.

“If my landlord puts it up to $600 a week, I would be homeless,” Jane said.

“This wasn’t my life prior to being a parent, but it just is what it is. You really go backwards when you have a relationship breakdown later in life.”

Anglicare’s local branch claimed there was a “major shortfall of affordable homes”, with the NT facing the highest homelessness rate across the country.

Five hundred and sixty Territorians per every 10,000 are homeless – comparatively, the second highest rate is Victoria at 47 people per 10,000.

Anglicare NT chief executive Craig Kelly said the federal government should switch to a needs-based funding model to address the discrepancy.

Anglicare NT chief executive Craig Kelly. Picture: Supplied

“We’re a small bunch here in the NT, but unfortunately, we have big needs,” Mr Kelly said.

“Because funding is allocated by population, we have a situation where Victoria, for example, gets much more funding than we do, but we obviously have higher needs.”

Mr Kelly said “significantly more people are seeking help” from the organisation since 2021 because of competition for dwellings.

“The challenge for us, as with other organisations, is that if that a person can’t secure affordable housing, that’s the crux of the problem,” Mr Kelly said.

Less than ten per cent of NT rentals are affordable for a working family on minimum wage with two children, according to Anglicare NT’s annual rental affordability report. Picture: Che Chorley

An NT government spokeswoman said more than $31 million had been spent in the last financial year on homelessness services.

Additionally, $4 billion in remote housing investment has been earmarked over the next ten years to address overcrowding.

“The new funding arrangement, and the establishment of a National Housing and Homelessness Plan, will help inform development of the next iteration of the Northern Territory government’s Homelessness Strategy, to be released in early 2025,” the spokeswoman said.

“The strategy will consider how we realign the Territory’s homelessness system to improve outcomes for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, with commissioning of new or existing services set for early 2025. “

NT Shelter head of operations Annie Taylor welcomed recent law reforms on renting but said the Territory was “both one of the least affordable jurisdictions in the country in which to rent a property and the jurisdiction with the least protections for renters”.

She urged the Territory government to tighten rent increases, outlaw no-cause evictions and establish an independent board to set bond limits.