The Vital Signs report, published this week by Hands Across Canberra and the Snow Foundation, provides a snapshot of Canberra focused on Health, Education and Employment, Housing, and Belonging. This is the second Vital Signs report; the first was published in 2018.

The report “takes the pulse of our community”, its subtitle states. In fact, Canberra’s Vital Signs are erratic, and doctors called in to examine the patient might scratch their head in confusion, not sure whether to celebrate or call for the last rites.

In some respects, Canberra is remarkably healthy: prosperous, well-educated, trustworthy, given to good works, and likely to live long.

In others, however, the patient is ailing, and sinking rapidly: impoverished, struggling to pay rent, unable to buy a home or pay for basic necessities, afflicted with mental illness and suicide, and losing hope.

In fact, a doctor might diagnose that Canberra is schizophrenic.

“Everybody thinks they know how this city works; everybody thinks they know the essence of this place that we call home; the reality is that we don’t,” said Peter Gordon, Hands Across Canberra’s CEO.

“Everybody in Canberra thinks everybody in Canberra’s fine. They might know occasionally someone that’s [had a] family breakup. But when you put it all together … the data is terrifying.”

Highest weekly earnings – and growing working poor

Canberra has the highest average weekly earnings in Australia ($1,237, compared to $958 nationally), a highly educated workforce, and low unemployment (4.3 per cent).

But nine per cent of Canberrans (38,000 people) live in poverty, including 11 per cent of children (9,000 kids), and 44 per cent of children in single parent families. That number will increase, warns Dr Emma Campbell, CEO of the ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS).

Thirty-eight per cent of those people in poverty are in wage-earning households; 72 per cent are families with children, and 36 per cent rely on part-time work. A third are highly vulnerable to financial shocks.

“The high averages in the ACT too often hide the poverty and disadvantage that exist in our community,” Dr Campbell said. “The high averages also mean that the cost of living in the ACT has risen significantly.”

The causes of poverty, she stated, are income and the cost of housing.

The cost of basic commodities has increased hugely over the last five years, as ACTCOSS’s August report revealed: health has risen 19 per cent, electricity 28 per cent, gas 26 per cent, and housing 16 per cent.

The ACT has the lowest proportion of people on welfare support in the last two years – but the number of people receiving JobSeeker or Youth Allowance has increased by 7.5 per cent since lockdown began (a figure not captured in this report), Dr Campbell stated. Worse, people on those payments are forced to live $140 below the poverty rate.

“If you are unable to secure work, for whatever reason, in a jurisdiction as prosperous as this, we should not be forcing you to live below the poverty rate,” Dr Campbell said.

The housing problem

Canberra’s house prices are the most expensive in the country; in June, the median was $1.016 million, the highest quarter-on-quarter increase and year-on-year increase of any capital city.

Fewer Canberrans own their own home; only 25 per cent own their home outright – the lowest since the mid-1990s; 40 per cent have a mortgage, while 34 per cent rent, again the highest since 1994–1995.

But Canberra’s median weekly rent in Canberra is $630 for houses and $500 for units, compared to national median weekly rents of $477 for houses and $427 for units.

Unsurprisingly, the ACT has the highest rate of rental stress among lower income private rental households, at 73 per cent. It has the highest proportion of people on welfare spending more than half their income on rent (10 per cent, compared to seven per cent nationally), while a social security recipient could not afford any of the 1,002 private rental properties advertised in Canberra.

The ACT has a shortage of 3,100 social houses – and Mr Gordon predicted that deficiency would grow to 10,000 in years to come.

“That makes the challenges of getting young people into their first house or moving out of home just outrageously more difficult,” Mr Gordon said.

In fact, Dr Justin Baker, director of the Youth Coalition of the ACT, fears young people risk being excluded from the housing market.

“Young people’s hope for the future looks tenuous, at best,” he said. “They no longer can aspire to take part in the housing market.

“There aren’t easy answers to solve the housing market, but the government needs to step in to control some of these things so that young people can have a future that they know is optimistic and not bleak.”

Moreover, with applicants waiting nearly a year (339 days) for public housing, there is concern the number of homeless people will increase, particularly older women, the report states.

ACTCOSS has called for the Commonwealth Government to increase the income support levels across Australia, and for both the Federal and ACT Governments to invest in social housing.

“You can’t be okay until you have a roof over your head, and we have to fix this,” Mr Gordon said.

Government response

“Every Canberran has a right to a secure home,” said Rebecca Vassarotti, ACT Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services. “Yet many people are facing housing insecurity and stress in the face of the pandemic – in an environment where housing is treated as a market rather than as a fundamental human right.”

Ms Vassarotti said the ACT Government committed $18 million to the homelessness sector this term to support the people most in need. They worked with the sector to understand where this funding should go to help Canberrans.

The government also increased ongoing funding by 12.7 per cent for all homelessness services in the ACT. “This is the first real rise in base funding they have seen in almost a decade,” Ms Vassarotti said.

Through initiatives like Common Ground Dickson, expanding the Axel Housing First Program, and working with community providers, the government would be able to house more people sleeping rough, experiencing homelessness, or at risk, and meet their individual needs, Ms Vassarotti said.

“While all of this will make a real difference, and improve outcomes for people in the ACT, it won’t be enough. To end poverty in Canberra, we need the Commonwealth Government to step up and raise the rate of JobSeeker and other payments. The current rates are keeping people below the poverty line where they have to choose between food, homes, health, and other essential needs.”

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