Charity group Anglicare has revealed in its new report that a “severe housing crisis” is affecting low-income earners, as few affordable accommodation options are made available to them.
 
Anglicare said that there are 65,614 properties available online over one weekend but only 618 are suitable for a couple on unemployment benefits with two children. This means a single parent with two children had just 165 options to put a roof over their heads, The Guardian reports.
 
Australian cities also appear to be unable to provide cheap housing for such unemployed families, despite having most of the job vacancies in the country.
 
Among the demographic, those who are single and on welfare are among the most disadvantaged looking for housing, with less than 1% of properties affordable.
 
 “This [negative gearing] is a huge amount of money from the taxpayer to the wealthy and we’d like to see some obligation back,” executive director Kasy Chambers was quoted as saying.
 
The study also found that in Melbourne only 182 out of almost 15,000 properties available for rent on a weekend in April 2015 would not put those on welfare in financial stress.
 
It added that only 25% of the rental properties were rated as affordable for those earning minimum wages.
 
The least affordable homes in Victoria belonged in cities like Casey, Port Phillip and Whittlesea. Anglicare said it was “moderately better in Victorian rural areas, with about 12% of available rentals affordable for welfare recipients”.
 
There are affordable housing units in metropolitan Melbourne but which are located in the outer fringes, typically associated with poorer access to public transport, employment and education.
 
 

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