Canberrans receiving welfare payments are the worst off in the country when it comes to renting, with new data showing more ACT residents pay a larger portion of their income and rental assistance on housing than in any other state or territory.
Nearly 54 per cent of ACT residents receiving Commonwealth rental assistance spent more than 30 per cent of their income on rent, Productivity Commission data showed.
Twenty-nine per cent of ACT residents receiving Commonwealth rental assistance spent more than half of their income on rent.
Amanda Ralph, a single mother on Centrelink, lives in an apartment building which is subsidised by the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS).
"At the moment, I'm pretty much living off the single parents' pension at this stage. I am a nurse. ICU is my background. But we left a family violence situation around this time last year and nursing hours don't really work too well with daycare hours," she said.
Ms Ralph receives Commonwealth Rental Assistance that is based on her child support assessment, however she is not currently being paid child support, leaving her receiving less than $7 in rental assistance.
"My rent assistance is probably less than somebody who doesn't receive any child support. But I don't think it was even that substantial. I think it was maybe $17. It doesn't do much for a Canberra rent," she said.
Ms Ralph lives in a NRAS building which means her rent is 20 per cent below the market price but the 10-year subsidy is due to run out soon, meaning her and the other more than 50 households in the Harrison building will need to either pay up to $200 more a week or move out.
"I was really lucky to get this place. But I also know that when the NRAS subsidy ends, it's going to be a different ballgame completely. Because if I look for similar places, it'll end up being I'm sharing a room with my two-year-old in a one-bedroom apartment in Queanbeyan - that's what will happen because there's no other options," she said.
"It's sometime in the next 18 months that it'll end. I do know that there'll be a 90-day notice period, but in the Canberra housing market, 90 days is not very long to find a place. So there is that constant anxiety and dread.
"I'm lucky, but I also don't know when the luck is running out and that's kind of a cause for ongoing stress and anxiety. You see all of the articles about people moving into a tent in a caravan park and that's not the life for a two-year-old."
Australian National University Associate Professor Ben Phillips said Commonwealth rental assistance should be increased to keep up with growing housing prices.
"There's not a lot of stock that's suitable for low-income households, and particularly those on government payments and obviously housing costs can take up a very large share of their disposable income. So it certainly would be helpful to increase the rent assistance payments," Professor Phillips said.
"At the moment, the most you're probably getting is somewhere in the order of $150 per fortnight or $75 a week. Now, that's useful, but when you're looking at median rents in Canberra being sort of four or five hundred a week or even higher, [it] doesn't go a long way."
Professor Phillips said increasing rental assistance may have an inflationary impact on rents but it would still benefit people on the scheme.
"Overall, they would be significantly better off from an increase in rent assistance," he said.
Eben Leifer, the deputy convener of housing interest group Greater Canberra, said the ACT needs a longer term solution to its housing crisis.
"At a local level, one of the simplest solution is increasing the supply of housing in our city and that's something we've seen around the world resulting in good outcomes," Mr Leifer said.
"Increasing that supply of housing would go a long way to making rents more affordable in Canberra."
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