Western Australia is caught in a housing "spiral", with soaring rents and a lack of supply leaving locals out in the cold.
As the state government concedes it has bought no existing homes in the Wheatbelt for social housing, new figures from Anglicare WA paint a bleak picture for the state.
Anglicare's 2022 Rental Affordability Snapshot found rental prices had jumped by $50 a week across WA since last year.
In the Wheatbelt, the average rent is now $310 a week.
Just over half (58 per cent) of all available homes in the Wheatbelt have been deemed "affordable" for lower-income families — where rent takes up less than 30 per cent of a household's income.
But for people on JobSeeker, that number drops to zero.
Anglicare WA chief executive Mark Glasson said the situation was now critical.
"We have, as a nation, ignored social housing for the past 30 or 40 years," he said.
Missing a spot
The state government last year announced a $575 million social housing plan, aimed at addressing critical shortages across the state.
This included $40 million for "spot purchasing" — allowing the state government to buy empty dwellings in existing developments to increase supplies of affordable homes.
Six months into the program, 176 properties have been purchased — but not one of those has been in the Wheatbelt.
Region |
Spot Purchase Acquisitions (Settled) 1 September 2021 – 31 March 2022 |
|---|---|
Metro North |
72 |
Metro South |
35 |
Metro East |
19 |
Great Southern |
13 |
South West |
4 |
Goldfields |
2 |
Midwest |
8 |
Pilbara |
7 |
Wheatbelt |
0 |
Kimberley |
16 |
Total |
176 |
The government said it had considered buying 39 homes in the Wheatbelt since the program was launched, but none had been settled, "mainly due to age and property condition, including the presence of asbestos".
The government also noted the region had the "lowest demand for public housing across the state".
But Mr Glasson said it was not good enough.
"After six months, you would hope there'd be a few more purchased than that [in the Wheatbelt]," he said.
He said boosting supplies of social housing, as well as increasing payments for those on JobSeeker, would be the key to addressing the current crisis.
"If we build more social houses, that would take a number of people out of the rental market," he said.
"We're now at a point we haven't seen before … we're at a critical point."
Driving workers away
Leonie Knipe is the managing director of Avon Valley Toyota.
She employs around 50 people in the Wheatbelt towns of Northam and Merredin, but said housing shortages had often left her business understaffed.
"We've had these roles that need to be filled and haven't been able to do so, and lack of housing has definitely been a barrier to that," she said.
"It takes a minimum of about two years to get any building erected at the moment. So I think we're all looking at each other going 'Help, we don't have the answers'."
Shadow Housing Minister Steve Martin was pushing for more support for residents in the Wheatbelt — a region he believed was too often left behind.
"The spot purchasing program is a good idea but you quite simply need to buy homes," he said.
Ms Knipe said not having stable accommodation affected people in all aspects of their life.
"Home, heart, and family is basically where everything extends from, so if your home heart family isn't settled, I can't see that you'd be 100 per cent productive in other parts of your life," she said.
"As someone who lives in the Wheatbelt, it kind of tends to feel that we're not prioritised."
