Jenna and her four children can’t find a rental, so she’s going to pitch a tent by the river

While most dread the daily grind of house chores, Jenna dreams of placing her hands in sudsy dishwater in her own kitchen and hanging her children’s clothes to dry on the line.

Their rental lease expired in early January, and now they have nowhere to call home.

Instead, Jenna’s family have moved around South Australia’s Riverland, staying at friends’ houses and caravan parks.

“I’m not used to sitting on my bum being so lazy – I’m a mother of four,” she said.

“I usually have housework to attend to, I usually have some sort of school needs to help out with, I miss housework so crazy.”

They are just one of many families living through Australia’s private rental crisis – where a perfect storm of increased demand and low vacancies is pricing many out of the market.

They are staying at a friend’s house for now, but the constant uncertainty and expense of moving is wearing the family down.

Next month, Jenna said she was planning on pitching a large tent for the family to stay in along the edge of the River Murray.

“The kids just want to go home,” she said.

Their car broke down and has since been abandoned, so the family takes only what they can carry when they move to another place.

They are on the waitlist for public housing and community housing.

In an increasingly tight market with high competition for houses, each application for private rental properties has been rejected.

“We have been looking for private rental after private rental,” Jenna said.

“Just a few weeks ago I got knocked back for three properties in one day — that’s how fast these properties are going.

“It’s almost like the applications don’t get looked at.”

While the rental crisis is not new to many states, property market monitor SQM Research said national rental vacancies rates in January dropped to a 16-year low, with Adelaide renters now joining the queues fighting to secure a home.

Pandemic partly to blame

Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute managing director Michael Fotheringham said Australia’s housing woes had been a long time coming, but COVID-19 had made things worse.

“The housing challenges we have today have taken a generation or more to develop — they’re not going to be fixed this week,” Dr Fotheringham said.

“Early this year and late last year we saw rampant price rises in house purchases, all over the country including regional areas.”

“It’s one of the knock-on effects of COVID – people have realised they can work remotely, at least for significant parts of the week, so why not move where you can have more land, better air, better lifestyle?”

Dr Fotheringham said the result was fewer rental vacancies on the market.

“Rental vacancies all over the country have fallen through the floor — virtually every part of the country had below one per cent vacancy rates late last year,” he said.

“During 2020 we saw a whole lot of stock that had been on short term lending platforms like Airbnb moved into the private rental market for 12-month leases but in the second half of last year and into this year a lot of it has gone thundering back into short term lending because the cash return is potentially much stronger.”

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, renters account for 29.5 per cent of houses in South Australia, with 22.4 per cent of properties rented privately.

Seven months wait for emergency housing

There are 16,500 people on the waitlist for public housing in South Australia, with 2923 flagged as the highest priority, category 1.

Category 1 people can expect to wait seven months, the state’s public housing agency Housing SA said.

A report by South Australia’s Council of Social Service (SACOSS) found over the past 20 years, social housing — including public housing — dropped from 9.9 per cent of the market to 6.7 per cent, while at the same time rental prices rose.

The reduction in social housing for those on low incomes, combined with rising rental costs in the private market was causing major cost of living problems, SACOSS said.

Adelaide real estate agent Andrew Geppa said up to 100 people were registering interest in rental properties and some were offering up to $100 above the asking price.

“In my 23 years in my industry, I’ve never seen the rental market booming as we are currently experiencing today.”

While rising competition in the private rental market was great news for property owners, it is a different story for renters.

For Francis Duke from Adelaide’s northern suburbs, rising rental prices mean sacrifices need to be made elsewhere.

On Wednesday, for the first time in years, he had his hair professionally cut — a luxury he normally does not afford.

The free hairdressing service is offered at food collection points by the Puddle Jumpers charity.

“I borrowed some money to buy $20 clippers, which took me a while to pay off, but they get the job done.”

Puddle Jumpers chief executive Melanie Tait said there was a 300 per cent rise in demand for assistance at the beginning of COVID, and that demand had not reduced.

Increasingly, people were telling her they were soon going to lose their rental homes because the owners were selling them or hiking up the prices, she said.

“We live in a lucky country, and I would think that basic necessities such as food and housing should be at the top of our priorities, but they’re not,” Ms Tait said.

Single mother of one Danielle King said she counted herself as lucky, after securing community housing four years ago.

“I was facing homelessness before I got this house,” Ms King said.

“I never wanted to be in here long term — the goal always has been and always will be to build my own home.”

“Ever since I was a kid, all I wanted was to be able to paint a wall and now that I’ve got a daughter, I want to be able to paint her bedroom wall.”

In an election year for both the South Australian and federal governments, housing experts are looking to politicians for a promise of more funding to relieve the pressure and provide support to those struggling to keep a roof over their head.

For people like Jenna and her children who are living through Australia’s evolving rental housing crisis, help can’t come soon enough.

*Jenna’s last name was removed at her request.