Renters are on the front line of Victoria’s cost-of-living crisis.
Australia is now the second most-expensive nation for housing globally, and Melbourne is one of four major markets in Australia identified as “impossibly unaffordable”. In many areas of Victoria, the median rental rate is no longer affordable relative to the income of an average rental household.
Victoria also has the lowest proportion of social housing in Australia, which has pushed more low-income Victorians into the private rental market, where they compete with higher-income renters, including those who have been shut out of home ownership. And this comes at a time when people are facing increasing energy, food and health costs.
These conditions are putting Victoria’s rental fairness reforms to the test.
VCOSS’s fourth annual Renting in Victoria report has found that despite Victoria having some of the best protections in Australia, renters are still experiencing insecurity, housing stress and discrimination in the market.
The community sector workers on the frontline of this crisis say that a lack of affordable rental housing and rent increases are compounding other cost-of-living pressures, pushing more renters further into housing stress and the most vulnerable renters into poverty.
With one-third of Victorians now renting, it’s vital that Victoria continues its momentum to make renting fairer and safer by improving how the current laws operate and increasing the supply of rental and social housing to alleviate pressure in the market.
Read the full report and see our recommendations for action here.