Just a few years ago, Ashlie Stevenson was volunteering to feed the homeless in Sydney's inner suburbs — now she's homeless herself.
After falling into an unforeseen cycle of disadvantage, the 64-year-old is one of hundreds of thousands of Australians languishing on growing waiting lists for public housing.
The Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) is calling on the federal government to step up its funding for new social and affordable housing projects to arrest a crisis fanned by ballooning rental prices across the country.
A new joint ACOSS and University of NSW report to be released today has found more than 155,000 households are registered on social housing waitlists, with more than 400,000 households in need of affordable housing.
Ms Stevenson joined the list seven years ago as a precaution when she left work to study for a Diploma of Ministry at bible college in 2014.
Unable to find paid work in her new field, she volunteered to help the less fortunate instead.
She lived off Newstart student payments of $400 per fortnight and dipped into the last of her superannuation to make ends meet.
"I was able to keep renting most of that time, but I could see ... that things were getting worse, rents were going up," Ms Stevenson said.
"Unemployment income was going down in real terms, and people weren't hiring me. Despite my experience, knowledge, qualifications, I wasn't getting any answers."
Then in March 2020, the first COVID-19 lockdown hit and her two younger flatmates decided to move out of their share house.
With nowhere to go, she ended up in emergency housing — a stopgap system she described as "cruel" — before accepting the kindness of friends who offered a bed or couch to sleep on.
For the first time in her adult life, she has been unable to find full-time work despite handing out more than 100 resumes detailing her decades of experience in both horticulture and pathology.
Without a steady income, she lives off JobSeeker but rental prices in Sydney are so high she's unable to afford her own place even with the Commonwealth rent-assist supplement.
Recently, Ms Stevenson has come to the grim realisation she is likely waiting on someone to die before taking their place in a government home.
"I'm hoping after seven years I'm somewhere near the top [of the list]," she said.
The ACOSS report found housing stress due to affordability and availability has increased in both metropolitan and regional areas, particularly in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.
In regional Australia, the proportion of dwellings low-income tenants can afford has declined from 41 per cent to 33 per cent over the course of 2021.
ACOSS has called on the federal government to resume its "historical role" as the main funder of social housing developments by delivering a funding boost to build at least 20,000 new dwellings.
It has also recommended the Commonwealth Rent Assistance payment to low-income households be increased by 50 per cent.
Federal Minister for Homeless, Social and Community Housing, Michael Sukkar, said although state and territory governments had the primary responsibility for such developments, the Morrison government had supported the creation of more than 13,000 dwellings through the National Housing Financing and Investment Corporation (NHFIC)
Mr Sukkar said the establishment of the NHFIC was "one of the most significant national investments to support social and affordable housing in recent history".
"The government is also delivering across the housing spectrum, with around $9 billion expected to be spent on housing and homelessness in the upcoming financial year," he said.
State governments in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia have committed to self-funded public housing projects worth nearly $10 billion, set to deliver 23,000 homes.
ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said state governments had done a "remarkably good job" in supporting people who found themselves homeless during the pandemic but state resources for public housing weren't enough to meet demand.
"We need the federal government to step up and step back into this space and do some heavy lifting to both address the massive social housing shortfall and meet the future needs of a growing and ageing population," Ms Goldie said.
A NSW government spokesperson said it would welcome any additional support from the Commonwealth in the building of new social and community housing.
Last financial year, 408 social homes were built in the state by the NSW Land and Housing Corporation, which aims to complete another 3,200 new dwellings over the next five years.
There are more than 150,000 social homes in NSW, compared to just over 80,000 in Victoria, and the number of social housing in NSW has increased by 10 per cent since 2011.
