To mark Anti-Poverty Week, 16-22 October, the community sector has published a grim snapshot of poverty and inequality in the ACT.

“Canberra is an especially hard place to be poor,” said Dr Gemma Killen, acting CEO of ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS).

ACTCOSS’s annual poverty factsheet, published Monday, reveals that the ACT has the highest average weekly earnings in Australia, but the rising cost of living means many Canberra households cannot afford the fundamentals of a healthy life such as housing, food, transport, health services, and energy.

The community sector has called on the Federal Government to increase welfare and rent assistance payments, and for the ACT Government to provide more social and affordable housing, and more funding for the community sector.

‘So much poverty‘

Nearly one in 10 Canberrans (9 per cent) live in poverty: an estimated 38,300 Canberrans, including 9,000 children, the report states.

“That we’re such a wealthy territory makes it all the more disappointing and dismaying that we can see so much poverty in our own community,” Dr Killen said.

“Poverty is not a lifestyle choice,” Carmel Franklin, CEO of financial counselling service Care, said.

“It’s not something people want; they don’t want to have to choose whether to buy food or medication, whether to pay rent or their electricity bill.

“Poverty occurs either because people are chronically low paid and inadequately housed, or because they experience a change in circumstances which is usually outside their control… relationship, employment, health…

“We need a better income safety net, and we need a much better investment in social housing.”

The cost of living is rising faster in the ACT than elsewhere in Australia, Dr Killen said. Over the last five years, automotive fuel has increased by nearly 35 per cent; electricity by 28 per cent, and gas by 24 per cent; medical and hospital services by 21 per cent. These are some of the biggest increases in more than 20 years, she said.

“People who are on Centrelink incomes cannot be expected to continue to absorb the rise in cost of living,” Ms Franklin said.

Calls for assistance to St Vincent de Paul have increased by 15 per cent, and are on an upward trajectory, Vinnies’ director of special works, Stuart Davis-Meehan, said. The number of people seeking food assistance and financial assistance to pay for petrol, medical bills, and rent has significantly increased.

An unprecedented number of people are seeking food relief, according to food pantry provider Community Services #1. The charity supports a preschool where last year five children went to school without breakfast daily; this year, 20 children every day come to school hungry.

“The ACT is great at hiding homelessness, our vulnerable, and people who are struggling in our community,” CEO Amanda Tobler said.

“This week, we actually need to stand up as a community. We need to say enough is enough, we want to be able to have and ensure that everyone in our community has a safe home, has food in their belly, and has the ability to actually be the very best person they can be in their world.”

The community sector wants the Federal Government to raise the rate of income support to at least $70 per day.

“We know it works, because during the pandemic, when we had Coronavirus supplements in place, the rate of poverty almost halved in Canberra,” Dr Killen said.

Rent and housing

Private rental costs are the main driver of poverty, Jeremy Halcrow, ACTCOSS’s chairman, said. According to the factsheet, Canberra is the least affordable Australian city to rent in for low-to-moderate income households, people receiving income support, young people, and essential workers. Again, the ACT has the highest rate of rental stress in Australia among lower income private rental households, at 73 per cent (up from one-third in 2019).

“The problem is getting much worse,” Dr Killen said.

“If you’re on a Centrelink income, you cannot afford to rent privately in Canberra,” Ms Franklin said.

“The rents are just astronomical. Without a better safety net, we’re going to have more and more people experiencing homelessness.”

Older Australians are particularly affected, according to Mr Halcrow. More than two million older Australians live on the full age pension; about a quarter of them live in poverty. Many older Australians must choose between eating healthily, heating their home, and paying for medications and other health care costs, he said. For the first time in the ACT in living memory, people in their late 90s have been evicted from private rentals, he said. In his view, the ACT Government’s planning system constrains the development of affordable rental accommodation.

“Housing stock is not affordable and appropriate for frail aged singles and couples,” he said.

The ACT Government must provide more social and affordable housing, Dr Killen said.

The ACT has an estimated shortfall of 3,100 housing properties, and 8,500 more social housing dwellings are needed by 2036, the factsheet states. There is less public housing now than in 2012, “yet the experiences of poverty and the rates of unaffordability have gone up,” she said. The standard waiting time for public housing is now more than four years, while those on the priority list wait almost a year to get a home.

“That should be unacceptable,” Dr Killen said.

Mr Halcrow called on the Commonwealth Government to increase the rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 50 per cent, and thereafter index it to the increases in private rental.

Homelessness is also on the rise, the community sector states. In the 2016 census, 1,600 people were homeless or experiencing homelessness in Canberra.

“Those numbers are going up, and we need to do something to intervene,” Dr Killen said.

Healthcare is particularly unaffordable, she stated. The ACT has one of the lowest rates of bulk billing doctors in the country (only four GP clinics bulk-bill all their patients, according to a Cleanbill report published this weekend), and the ACT has the highest rate of people delaying healthcare or seeking treatment because of the cost.

Children

This year’s Anti-Poverty Week has a focus on children, Ms Franklin said. “There are too many children who are missing out on education, sport, music, and art activities – not because they’re not talented, not because they’re not inspired, but simply because their families can’t afford tuition fees or transport or uniforms.”

Women and children are staying in violent relationships purely for financial economic and housing security, Sue Webeck, CEO of the Domestic Violence Crisis Service, said. After-school activities, social engagements, and childhood activities are often protective factors for abused children, but their parent might not be able to afford them if they leave.

“Choosing to leave often halves or more than halves their financial resources, and they cannot keep up with the cost of living, the cost of private rental, or even compete in order to access a private rental. This leaves them with little to no choice but either to return to the relationship where violence has occurred, or to simply stay, to begin with. … This isn’t a choice that our community should find acceptable.”

“Women can be one health crisis away from socioeconomic disadvantage or poverty,” Lauren Anthes, CEO of peak body Women’s Health Matters, said. They are more likely to take time out of work and forgo financial stability to have children and care for them, and their healthcare needs are different to men’s, she said. She called for universal, free access to reproductive health services (from abortion to assisted reproduction and fertility preservation) and reproductive health policies in the workplace.

Dr Killen also called for the ACT Government to fund adequately and sustainably the community sector that cares for people who are doing it tough, particularly Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, for whose community poverty is more of an issue, and for whom healthcare and housing are even more inaccessible.

Serena Williams, founder of an Indigenous legal aid program at the Women’s Legal Centre, said the government should break the cycle of issues that face Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: domestic and family violence, education, and housing.

“We should not be in poverty on our own land.”