For Rhiannon*, the last three years have been a first-hand tour through the housing crisis.
Forced to leave home at 17, she's moved between crisis hotel accommodation, transitional housing and couch-surfing after a share house didn't work out.
At her lowest point, she was spending the night in front of a shop in Brisbane's CBD. She couldn't sleep.
"I didn't want to be assaulted or anything like that," Rhiannon said. "You're very vulnerable."
She didn't feel much safer during an extended stay at a backpacker hostel, where she said drug use was rife among guests. Many people there were 15 to 30 years older than she was.
She said she left after she was pushed into a sexual encounter with one of them.
"People came around and had drinks," she said.
"There was this guy, I thought he was just being friendly … I was coerced into being with him. I felt pressured."
Rhiannon only has a place to live right now because a generous landlord is covering rent she can't afford.
But it's a temporary arrangement. And she doesn't know what she'll do next.
She said she was unable to compete for accommodation with prospective tenants who had stable employment and solid rental histories. Most of her friends also felt like they'd been locked out of the rental market, she said.
"It seems like it's gotten a lot worse than the past, especially with the housing crisis… it's just kind of made everything even harder."
The 'cascade effect'
Homelessness advocates say they're seeing more and more people being squeezed out of the rental market. Like Rhiannon, many are ending up in unstable and potentially unsafe accommodation such as hostels.
Urgent calls for help have soared at Brisbane Youth Services, which offers support to young people aged 12-24. Last year there were more than 3,000 requests for crisis housing or financial assistance – up 88 per cent since 2020.
The service's CEO, Pam Barker, said a lot of those requests for help were coming from people who haven't traditionally needed it.
"We're seeing young people who have jobs," Ms Barker said. "We're seeing young people who are at uni. They're coming and asking for help. They can no longer afford share houses, or cheap apartments."
Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin said part of the explanation could be found in the "cascade effect" now at work in the rental market — where increasing demand and rising prices were pushing tenants from mid-range rentals into cheaper properties.
"Someone who might be on a middle income, you know, their rents have gone up, they go and look for a cheaper property and that then squeezes out the person who would have used that property," Ms Colvin said.
"The person who can only ever really afford the cheapest property on the market while they're competing against someone on a higher income — they end up with nothing."
She said the phenomenon was being observed by support services all over the country.
A recent report from charity Anglicare said less than 1 per cent of private rental properties in the country were deemed affordable for full-time workers on the minimum wage.
And last month, real estate website Domain reported house rents had hit record highs in all state capitals, and unit rents were at record highs in all capitals except Canberra and Darwin.
Official statistics show homelessness in Australia increased more than 5 per cent from 2016 to 2021. Advocates say the problem has only gotten worse.
"Homeless services just have so many people coming through the door that they… actually can't speak to everyone who's coming through the door," Ms Colvin said.
Vacant rentals at record lows
One indicator of the scale of the problem is rental vacancy rates.
Depending on the index used, they are at or near record lows.
And we've never seen vacancy rates this low for this long, said Michael Fotheringham from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
"We've not seen this sort of pattern," Mr Fotheringham said. "We've seen little bumps where rental vacancies drop to this sort of level just for a month and then bounced back. But it hasn't bounced back."
According to Domain data released yesterday, the national rental vacancy rate has been sitting at an all-time low of 0.8 per cent for four consecutive months.
"The typical rule of thumb is between about 2.5 per cent and 3 per cent vacancy rate is a healthy rental market," Mr Fotheringham said.
"We're well below that rate. And what that means is people are taking choices that they probably wouldn't otherwise take because of a lack of options."
Domain's report said the continuous stretch of a steady vacancy rate suggested conditions had begun to stabilise for tenants — but "all markets remain firmly locked in favour of landlords".
Tackling the problem
Advocates believe a long-term solution to the crisis requires fundamental change to how the housing system works.
The Federal Government's setting up a National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and developing a 10-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
In December, it introduced legislation to set up a Housing Australia Future Fund – a $10-billion fund to support the construction of 30,000 social and affordable homes over the next five years.
Ms Colvin said that fund represented a "really great start", but much more needed to be done.
"We know we've got a shortfall around the country of at least 400,000 properties," Ms Colvin said.
"The fact is we can't end homelessness without having the housing that people can afford."
* Name changed for privacy reasons.
