I had more ambition to own property as a teenager than I do now. I am 24 years old and house prices in my home town, Hobart, have more than doubled in the past 10 years. Now I just dream about nice landlords.
In the 2023 budget, the government announced it would increase the maximum rate for those on the commonwealth rent assistance program by 15% (or up to $31 a fortnight), which is for people receiving government benefits such as full-time students, those on jobseeker, and pensioners. This is somewhat helpful for the thousands of people supported through these programs. But many renters are not.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2022, 31% of Australians were renters, and 60% of these were households with a reference person under 35. In analysis of this data, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that an increasing rate of renting “has had a disproportionate impact on younger households”.
The report finds that unlike our parents’ generation, we stay renters. We are 18% less likely to own property in our mid-to-late 20s than those born from 1947-1951 were at our age. The national rate of home ownership has been lower for almost each successive age cohort since those born in that age bracket.
That is to say that renting is no longer something we just do while we are students – living our share house fantasies until we become serious young professionals, have children and purchase a home in the suburbs. We are coming off youth allowance, getting “adult” jobs, but still spending disproportionate percentages of this wage on rent, meaning we are stuck in a cycle that will never allow us to “break-in” to the market – unless supported by parents with the money to help, which is only widening wealth disparity.
In this way, the increase to commonwealth rent assistance feels like a child-sized Band-Aid over a very large, oozing scab. It is well intentioned and helps a little bit. But as my mum says, you still need to pull the Band-Aid off and clean the wound, otherwise it will get infected.
The housing crisis is not just affecting students, pensioners and those experiencing unemployment. Housing is a problem for almost all young people, and it will continue to be a problem as long as homes are assets rather than basic human rights.
Meanwhile, there are ways to fix the housing crisis: greater funding for public housing (which is part of the 2023 budget and may go towards increasing supply for people on low incomes), and reforming the tax concessions that make investing so appealing (and that have normalised investment as a “clever” financial decision). If investors sold off their multiple properties, more young people could enter the market and would no longer be renting, also pushing down the average rental cost.
There needs to be structural, meaningful change to the way that the government treats housing – policies like rental caps and reforms to investment property taxation, and an acknowledgment of the ever-growing inequality between generations.
But as it stands, young people will continue to be stuck in a precarious rental market, which still perceives renting as a temporary option, a pre-cursor to home ownership like it was for our parents. Because of this, we have very few rights as tenants. At a bare minimum, we should be treated like we actually live in the place. We need proper heating and cooling installed (and then maintained), we need decent notice before being evicted, we should be able to hang paintings on the walls, especially if they are an attempt to cover up mould that was never removed after multiple requests.
Renting forever is faced by many my age, which is why it also needs to be made livable and affordable.
Whenever my lease is drawing to an end, I dread the gap before finding another place. I am lucky that I can sleep on a share house couch or go home to my parents. But that will only become harder once I have my own family, and I want my children to grow up in a home where we can stick their drawings up without fear of peeling the paint.
• Ada Lester has written for ABC News and the Mercury
