The latest Rental Affordability Index report shows a snapshot of the state of Australia’s rental unaffordability, and the ACT’s results are an “indictment”, according to ACT Shelter, a not-for-profit housing policy organisation.

Issued by Beyond Bank Australia, Brotherhood of St Laurence, National Shelter, and SGS Economics & Planning, the report placed the ACT’s overall Rental Affordability Index (RAI) at 121, sitting on the border of Acceptable Affordability and Moderately Unaffordable.

The average Canberran renter in 2022 spends 25 per cent of their income on rent, the Report showed.

But for low-income Canberrans, the reality is more complicated.

The average rental household in the ACT has a gross income of $123,566 per year – the highest in the country.

Yet, renters earning less than $106,000 per year are in housing stress if they rent a freestanding home, and more than half of Canberrans are priced out of the private rental market altogether.

In almost every category of people on low incomes, the ACT was the most unaffordable location in which to rent.

This includes single and coupled pensioners, people on JobSeeker, single part-time worker parents on benefits, single full-time working parents, students, couples on minimum wage, and hospitality workers.

For dual income couples with children and single income couples with children, the ACT was the second least affordable.

For a single pensioner household in the ACT, rent as a share of income reached 70 per cent – the highest in Australia.

For a single person on JobSeeker, the RAI is currently 26, equalling the top spot along with Greater Sydney. Rent as a share of income in the ACT reached 117 per cent for this demographic.

While the annual income for pensioners has increased by $2,460 since last year’s report, there’s been no affordability improvement as rents continued to outpace rising incomes in the ACT.

The report stated that “low-income households [in the ACT] face particularly unaffordable rents (such as the student sharehouse and hospitality worker household profiles), which are pushed up by the overall high-income earning workforce”.

However, when the ACT is compared to Jerrabomberra, the neighbouring NSW suburb is more unaffordable than any in the ACT.

Jerrabomberra scored a RAI of 61, Extremely Unaffordable, while no ACT suburb reached such high unaffordability.  

ACT Shelter: rental unaffordability an ‘indictment’

ACT Shelter CEO Travis Gilbert said despite the government pegging social security increases to soaring inflation, recipients are still no better off.

“Behind the dry data are real Canberrans, who are really hurting. I believe public servants would be surprised to learn you need to reach an Executive Level 1 salary level to afford to rent a freestanding home,” Mr Gilbert said.

In a confronting example, he said a police officer’s average salary would price them out of renting a freestanding home.

A couple working full time in a service industry, including homelessness and hospitality, would be on the verge of rental stress, while an aged care worker would have no savings capacity after paying rent, placing them at risk of homelessness.

“Unsurprisingly, participating in our private rental market is beyond the means of single pensioners, who would be left with about $100 a week after making rent and keeping the lights on, while older couples are left with just 40c in every dollar,” Mr Gilbert said. “An indictment of our ‘age-friendly city’.”

According to Mr Gilbert, just 10 per cent of Canberrans are eligible for public housing and rent projections put prices up by 13 per cent over the next 12 months.

He said there needs to be urgent action to avert a “cost of living catastrophe”.

ACTCOSS: ACT Government housing, homelessness policies ‘failing’

ACT Council of Social Services (ACTCOSS) CEO Dr Emma Campbell said the ACT’s rental affordability crisis has continued to worsen for people on low incomes.

Dr Campbell said the ACT’s damning RAI shows the ACT Government’s housing and homelessness policies are “failing” to meet the needs of Canberrans on low incomes, many of whom are in full-time work.

She added the Government’s Housing Strategy report card released last week showed there’s a “long way to go” for delivery of social and affordable housing commitments.

“Instead of ‘ongoing’ or ‘in progress’ on the ACT Government’s housing commitments, we need to see homes ‘delivered and completed’ for the ACT’s pensioners, families and frontline workers who are struggling to keep a roof over their head,” Dr Campbell said.

“How many more reports do we need before the ACT Government will take this crisis seriously?”

She said the ACT Government needs to take immediate action to empower community housing providers to build more homes through access to financial support and affordable land.

ACT Government say affordable housing is a national challenge

In response to Canberra’s RAI, an ACT Government spokesperson said the challenge of increasing affordable housing options is one that all states and territories are facing and the government is working alongside the Commonwealth Government on the delivery of commitments through the Housing Future Fund and National Housing Accord.

The spokesperson said the “comprehensive” package of initiatives in the recent ACT Budget is aimed at improving affordability, diversity and supply of housing, and over the next five years, the government has planned for more land to be available “than ever before”.

Pushing back on ACTCOSS’ comments regarding the latest ACT Housing Strategy report card, the spokesperson said it highlights “a range of achievements that improve access to affordable rental accommodation for Canberrans on low and moderate incomes, and involve collaboration with the community housing sector”.

Additionally, the government is progressing initiatives to increase affordable rental housing supply, including housing targets and Community Facility Zoned land, the spokesperson said.

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