They are the victims of “hidden poverty” who are now accessing support for the first time in their lives.
Key points:
- Interest rates have risen 10 times in a row
- More people are seeking help from charities and financial advisers
- The state government is focusing on increasing housing supply
Ten interest rate rises in a row are biting hard into household budgets in South Australia and stretching the ability of many people to pay for even basic necessities such as food.
Among them is Kerri Bisbal, who lives in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.
Her family is now paying $700 a month more on its mortgage than it was before rates started to rise last year.
“We still have our adult children living at home with us … and they’re all struggling as well so we’ve found it a bit tough,” Ms Bisbal said.
Ms Bisbal said the family has had to change its spending habits.
“The way we eat, the way we go out, lots of things,” she said.
“I hope there’s not going to another one … Another price hike would definitely affect us.”
Charities seeing increasing demand
Food charity KickStart for Kids has already seen a major increase in demand for its services.
Founder Ian Steel said he had been contacted by many new schools that wanted to access his vital breakfast and lunch service.
“That’s just this year. I’m getting emails from headmasters and principals in schools in the more affluent areas, saying we’ve got kids — kids that would never need to access your breakfast or lunch program [before] — really, really needing it now,” Mr Steel said.
“The kids are the ones who are really going to suffer through interest rate rises and through other product rises around Australia.
“Some of these kids are only eating the breakfast that we provide or the lunch that we provide.
“The need is going to get greater and greater.”
At the start of the year, KickStart for Kids operated in 340 South Australian schools.
That has now increased to 365 schools, with the service providing meals to 13,000 schoolchildren daily.
“In the more affluent schools and in the more affluent areas, we’re seeing this thing called hidden poverty, where due to interest rate rises, due to petrol going up and food going up, other things are getting left by the wayside,” Mr Steel said.
“The disadvantaged kids from the disadvantaged families are doing it even tougher … They were doing it tough before but they’re doing it even tougher now and we’re going to see some … terrible poverty out there in the next few months.”
Foodbank is another charity that’s facing a large increase in demand for its services.
Chief executive Greg Pattinson said his organisation’s nine food hubs in South Australia had never been busier.
“We’re seeing record numbers of people coming to our food hubs, an increased number of inquiries through our telephone lines asking how people can access food assistance because they’re struggling to feed themselves,” Mr Pattinson said.
“Increasingly, it’s normal everyday Australians who for various reasons can’t make ends meet — over 60 per cent have jobs and over 40 per cent have mortgages … It could be somebody in anybody’s street.”
Mr Pattinson said he had asked the South Australian government for more financial support.
“What we’re looking for now is increased support from the South Australian government to assist us to underpin the programs that we do and make sure we can continue to do the programs that we offer right across South Australia,” Mr Pattinson said.
“In South Australia, there are 78,000 children who are living in severely food-insecure households. Now, that’s unacceptable … We’re supposed to be a lucky country.”
Renters affected as well as homeowners
For those in need of financial help, there are also free services available that can help people talk to banks and find other support services.
Kate Fox is from the South Australian Financial Counsellors Association and represents 120 financial counsellors in SA.
She said demand had increased significantly in the past few months, with each 0.25 per cent increase in rates equating to a $77-a-month budget hit for people with a $500,000 loan.
“As it is, people have been struggling to find how they can pay for their bills and their food and juggle all those expenses,” she said. “And now this as well, it’s been really difficult for people.”
“[There is] the anxiety of not knowing how you’re going to afford your next meal, how you’re going to be able to pay to keep the electricity on, so people usually by the time they’re seeing a financial counsellor, it’s quite a stressful situation for them.”
Ms Fox said renters, who were already under pressure, were not immune to the impact of interest rate rises.
“I can only assume the landlords are having to pass on some of the higher interest rates that they’re having to pay to retain their investment properties as well, and we’re seeing that in terms of higher cost of rent,” she said.
South Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Ross Womersley agreed many households were now struggling to keep up with mortgage repayments.
“The biggest impact is on those groups of people who’ve bought into the housing market, stretched themselves to the absolute limit and now find themselves having to find a lot of extra weekly income in order to repay the debts that they’ve accrued,” Mr Womersley said.
“The banks have to be responsible for the people that they lend their money to.
“They should be taking real measures to make sure that those people have capacity to pay, even anticipating that interest rate increases might be around the corner.
“They ought to be seeking to protect the interests of their customers and ensure that they’re not inviting them into unreasonable debt.”
Mr Womersley said the mortgage payment increases had clearly delivered a significant impact on renters too.
Rental prices in South Australia have increased by about 10 per cent over the past 12 months.
“The biggest issue we have right at the moment in South Australia, particularly, is the rental affordability crisis, and so one of the things we’d particularly like the state government to move on is to think carefully about capping rents,” Mr Womersley said.
Mr Womersley said the welfare groups he represented were also seeing clients that had never needed help before.
“There’s no doubt that we’re seeing and hearing across our sector the arrival of a whole lot of people that were previously probably doing OK but in fact are now finding that cost of living increases and things like interest rate increases are creating such enormous pressures in their families that they’re now having to go and seek assistance that they wouldn’t have previously sought out,” Mr Womersley said.
“The community is in pain. They reach out to the non-government sector, to the charities, and subsequently the charities feel the pressure of these extra people seeking assistance.
“They bend over backwards … but, in the long term, the only way that they can continue to be accommodated is with extra funding.”
Government focused on increasing housing supply
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas dismissed calls for a rental cap but said his government was introducing housing reform, with a focus on increased public housing.
“I’ve never supported a rent cap. I think it would be an unwise price signal to the market when we want to build more homes, not less,” Mr Malinauskas said
“We announced a very comprehensive housing package only a couple of weeks ago — reforms to rentals … massive investment in public housing unlike we’ve seen before and the biggest land release in living memory for the state.”
In terms of extra funding, Mr Malinauskas said extra support was under consideration.
“If we can expand the scope to broaden our assistance to more people, particularly around energy concession, for relief that is something that we are considering,” the premier said.
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