NSW government to sell land near Sydney CBD to private developers despite affordable housing crisis By Ursula Malone Posted 1h ago https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07...-land-to-be-sold-off-housing-crisis/104065782 NSW Labor accused of breaking key election promise on housing. In short: A site on Parramatta Road in Camperdown will be sold to private developers with no requirement for any social or affordable housing to be built. The NSW government has been accused of breaking an election promise to build more affordable housing. Last month, the Minns government announced that it would build up to 30,000 homes. A prime parcel of government-owned land in inner-city Sydney is to be sold off to private developers with no requirement for any social or affordable housing to be built. The site on Parramatta Road in Camperdown is just 20 minutes from the CBD and sits on a major transport corridor with a bus stop right outside. Opposition parties have accused the government of breaching a key election commitment. Labor went into last year's election pledging that any development on public land would subject to an affordable housing quota. "Any properties built on surplus government land will be subject to Labor's mandatory requirement for 30 per cent of dwellings to be used for social, affordable and universal housing," the party stated in its Fresh Start Plan election manifesto. The land in Camperdown has sat vacant for two years.(ABC News: Ursula Malone) "It is a broken promise," Greens MP Kobi Shetty said. "We know that they promised an anti-privatisation agenda and that they were going to ensure that every piece of public land had affordable housing on it. "Now, here's an example where there's zero public housing, zero affordable housing and they're essentially privatising this big important piece of land in the inner city." The land was compulsorily acquired by the government as part of the construction of WestConnex.(ABC News: Ursula Malone) Land vacant for two years Perched on the southern boundary of Ms Shetty's electorate, the land was compulsorily acquired by the government as a dive site for the construction of a WestConnex tunnel. For the last two years, it's been a vacant lot, secured behind a padlocked gate. Kobi Shetty says the selling of the land in Camperdown is a "broken promise".(ABC News: Greg Bigelow) With the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital just around the corner, Ms Shetty said it offered a rare opportunity to build desperately needed affordable housing for key workers in the inner city. "We need to be providing houses that our workers can live in," she said. "We can't have a situation where we're continuing to have nurses and teachers being priced out of the neighbourhoods that they work in and making it harder and harder for them to live in the city." The local MP was initially excited to hear Labor's announcement this week that 100 homes would be built on the lot. There will be no requirement for developers to build affordable housing.(ABC News: Ursula Malone) But her excitement soon evaporated when she learnt more of the detail. "We understand that they're entirely going to be market properties. So all private development, no social or affordable housing at all on this site," Ms Shetty said. "It's incredibly disappointing." Last month, the Minns government announced that it would build up to 30,000 homes on surplus government land over the next four years. The Camperdown site was among the first four parcels of public land earmarked for development. No plans for social housing Rose Jackson says the government's affordable housing target will be met.(ABC News: Keana Naugton) Housing Minister Rose Jackson confirmed that there were no plans to build social and affordable housing on that particular piece of public land. "The consistent advice government has received since taking office is that imposing a 30 per cent target on each site would deliver less social and affordable housing, less housing overall, and would do so at significantly greater cost," Ms Jackson said. "Our target to provide an uplift of social and affordable housing remains the same – but we must have a responsible approach to delivery. "This will ensure we can get shovels in the ground and a roof over peoples head sooner." She said the government's target of 30 per cent social and affordable housing would still be delivered across the program as a whole. "The harsh reality is that people are doing it tough, we need more homes as soon as we can get them," she said. 'Breaking election promise' Scott Farlow says the sale is a breach of the government's pre-election promise.(ABC News: Ursula Malone) The Opposition's housing spokesman Scott Farlow said it was "a clear breach" of the government's pre-election promise. "The government made a very clear commitment that all parcels that were a result of their land audit would have 30 per cent minimum social and affordable housing on them, " he said. "The government said every single site. They didn't talk about it being part of the plan overall." Mr Farlow said the sale of the site to a private developer was in breach of another government's promise not to sell off public assets. "When we have the sale of public land, it's right that the government should have certain expectations about what should be done on that public land," he said. "And it is right that social and affordable housing should be part of that component and that is what the people of NSW elected this government to do." Shortage of affordable rentals Nicole Gurran says there is a shortage of affordable housing for essential workers.(ABC News: Greg Bigelow) Nicole Gurran, professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Sydney, said the shortage of affordable rental housing in Sydney had reached crisis point. "We know key workers like nurses, police, teachers in particular, need to be able to live near the communities that they serve," Professor Gurran said. "When they can't find affordable housing near their work, it's particularly difficult." She welcomed the government's plan to boost the supply of social and affordable housing. "They're on the right track by identifying government land and by increasing the investment in social and affordable housing," she said. "But we need to increase the scale much more than what's on the table." She would like to see affordable housing targets on all developments, both public and private. "The best approach is simply to require property developers to include a proportion of affordable housing as part of all developments," Professor Gurran said. "Cities like London, for instance, that have similar affordability pressures to Sydney, now require that 50 per cent of homes, particularly on government sites, be affordable. "It's certainly an aspiration that we should be moving towards in Sydney."
Mickey... if I gave hoot, I'd come down there and (maybe) partner up with you and we'd make a fortune building homes. Actually, you should do it.
It is a planned scarcity by developers and the usual suspects. Building sufficient affordable housing is not the issue, it is the vested interests that overly restrict these homes getting planned. Studies by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) found zoning restrictions significantly inflated property prices in major cities. Their estimates suggest zoning contributes to 42% of the price increase for houses in Sydney and up to 69% in Melbourne. Candidates running on platforms to change this are needed and lots of them. https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/2018-03/full.html
Too old for that lark now besides for a weird reason wood dust badly affects me, hence a reason I went the metal route, fitter/machist apprenticeship with a large shipping Co in Auckland.
Wood?! That's old school! We'll use the billions of pounds of plastic containers everyone throws out daily.
There's a company on asx which builds truck mounted robot 3d printers. They were once called FastBrick, now they call themselves FBR LTD. They've been trading on struggle street for years, like a penny stock, now @ 4c, the most they ever got to was 23c. https://www.fbr.com.au/view/next-gen-hadrian-x https://quoteapi.com/resources/da98...BR_Hadrian_X_arrives_in_the_United_States.pdf
Welcome to Sydney. 1 bedroom (attic) with outdoor toilet sold for $1.29m https://www.domain.com.au/8-mcelhone-place-surry-hills-nsw-2010-2019313886
From gated villages across Australia, retirees are sharing their financial horror stories about the land lease industry ABC Investigations / By Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett Mon 29 Jul 2024 Trish Reece and her husband Wayne say they can't afford to leave their Lifestyle Communities village in Shepparton.(ABC News: Callum Marshall) For almost a decade, pensioners Trish Reece and her husband Wayne have been living in a gated village in Shepparton in regional Victoria, run by the controversial land lease operator Lifestyle Communities. Now they want to get out. "We don't want to live here anymore," she says. But she says they are stuck, financially, due to the so-called exit fees charged by the company when a resident sells their home. Lifestyle Communities exit fees start at 4 per cent of the selling price and scale up to a cap of 20 per cent from the fifth year of ownership. For a house that sells for $500,000, Lifestyle can take up to $100,000 in exit fees after five years. "We're just vegetables waiting to pop off the perch so they can collect their exit fee," Trish says. Lifestyle specialises in land lease communities in Victoria, where residents buy the home, usually a manufactured or moveable dwelling, and rent the land, paying site rental fees of up to $250 a week for a couple. It is part of a booming $12 billion land lease industry that houses more than 130,000 Australians, fuelled by a housing affordability crisis and an ageing population. Land lease communities have grown in popularity with retirees, lured by the promise of affordable, resort-style living.(ABC News) A significant number of residents are on a pension and given they own the home and rent the land, most are eligible to claim Commonwealth government rent assistance to help offset site rental fees. ABC Investigations and 7.30 recently uncovered growing discontent among some Lifestyle residents, including 80 at its Wollert community on Melbourne's northern fringe, who have lodged claims in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). The investigation highlighted claims Lifestyle is gouging residents with unfair fees, which some of its competitors don't charge, and charging dead people rent, a practice that is common across the industry. The stories prompted the Victorian government to announce it would develop a series of reforms, including a standardised site agreement for land lease residents. The company's share price also took a flogging, falling 24 per cent as investors lost confidence after the company confirmed a significant downgrade of profit for 2024. It pulled its forward outlook and estimates "due to the difficulty in quantifying the impact the uncertainty caused by recent media coverage might have on future sales and settlements". It told investors it had written to VCAT to ask for an urgent hearing. Some 80 residents of Lifestyle's Wollert community have lodged VCAT claims against the company.(ABC News: Danielle Bonica) The stories generated a flood of messages to the ABC from residents not just in Lifestyle villages but other land lease communities across Australia. Trish Reece is one of them. Her relationship with the company turned sour in 2021 when her mother-in-law Gwenda, who was living in the same Lifestyle community, had to move into aged care and gifted her home to Trish and Wayne, knowing they preferred her home and would move in. Under Lifestyle's contracts, the family faced the prospect of having to pay two exit fees: one for selling the home Trish and Wayne had been living in, and another for the couple to take ownership of Gwenda's home. Trish says they were told verbally by a manager at Lifestyle, who has since left, that the company would help them out and waive one exit fee if they decided to shift into Gwenda's home if her circumstances changed. Her husband Wayne was also at this meeting and recalls the offer being made. Trish and Wayne's decision to move houses within their Lifestyle Communities village in Shepparton cost them dearly.(ABC News: Callum Marshall) When they eventually sold their home in the community and moved into Gwenda's, the company made it clear they would have to pay two exit fees, which disappointed them, but Trish says she was unwell at the time and didn't fight it. All up, Lifestyle deducted $104,831 in exit fees, rent and selling fees, leaving them with $180,168. When they sell the place they are currently in they will face a third exit fee. "They were underhanded, greedy," she says. "We would have been better off financially if we stayed in the original home because we wouldn't be up for three sets of exit fees," she says. "It's so much of a chunk of our retirement savings gone … we'll have to be carried out of here in a box. We can't leave." In a statement, Lifestyle said it had spoken to its team and they "categorically deny a waiver was ever offered". It said the exit fees were applied in accordance with contracts signed by the home owners and that the family made a profit on both transactions after paying the exit fees. "The affordability of our homes is a key reason many residents choose a Lifestyle Communities option in the first place given the lower up-front cost due to the [exit fee] model," Lifestyle said. Moving homes within Lifestyle is an issue of concern for a number of people. One resident of a Lifestyle Community who wrote to the ABC said: "I'm not sure if you are aware that if you decide to sell your house in a Lifestyle Community and purchase another in the same village, Lifestyle also charge the same exit fees to both yourself as the vendor and also the vendor of the house you are purchasing, thereby doubling their profit. "I feel this is a very unscrupulous practice by Lifestyle." Some others have also expressed concern about exit fees. For five years, Deborah Jones has been fighting for her mother, who lives in a Lifestyle community. Deborah is taking Lifestyle to VCAT over exit fees and is calling on the government to step in and regulate the industry. "Enabling the [exit fee] is discriminating against Victorians, and the legislation needs to be brought into line with other states," Deborah says in her VCAT claim, lodged in 2023. Lifestyle's Wollert community, on Melbourne's northern fringe.(ABC News) Another person told the ABC that Lifestyle had charged a relative a 0.5 per cent handling fee and 2.5 per cent selling agent commission totalling $18,000 despite the relative finding the buyer and introducing the buyer to the Lifestyle agent. "It was a friend of a friend who wanted to get into that particular site," he said. He said the exit fee cost tens of thousands of dollars to "get out of their clutches". "She has the psychological scar of feeling like a complete idiot for ever going there in the first place," he said. Lifestyle said in a statement the home owner chose to appoint Lifestyle Communities and signed its selling agreement, which sets out the terms of the engagement, including the fees charged. "It is also important to note that Lifestyle does not make a profit on agent commissions," the company said. 'Do your homework' Lifestyle, which declined to give an on-camera interview for the 7.30 investigation, wrote to all residents the day after the program aired, expressing it was "disappointed" with the coverage and that it was "distressed that this matter is playing out in the media and the impact this may have on the Lifestyle brand and potential value of your homes". It sparked debate among residents, some believing it was designed "to pit home owners against each other". Some contacted the ABC, defending the company and expressing anger that another side of their community had been ventilated. At Shepparton, a meeting of residents gave support to Lifestyle. At another village, a resident was concerned the stories could have a negative impact on the sale of properties "and the many advantages of these communities for most residents". Another said they looked at the paperwork before signing and were aware of what their family would incur. "The price of our home has significantly increased over the years, in fact so much so, that the exit fees will be more than covered … We have our own voices and do not agree with what was said," the resident said. Another said they were sorry there were some unhappy residents, "but do your homework before you sign on the dotted line". Lifestyle said the purpose of the letter to residents was to provide reassurance to concerned home owners regarding its model and the security of their homes. "As a business for purpose, we have been hurt by recent allegations aired by the ABC," it said in a statement, noting that it stood by its model. It said it was easy to sell and move on from a Lifestyle community, adding the average profit per home owner was $86,000. "Lifestyle stands behind the [exit fee] model and notes that most operators in Victoria have [an exit fee]," its statement said. Discontent brewing in communities around the country The issues raised by some of the residents at Lifestyle's Wollert Community have put the national spotlight on a sector that until now has largely flown under the radar, despite its size and gaps in the state-based regulations. Across the industry, stories of bullying, intimidation, fee gouging, excessive rent increases and misleading contracts abound. In Queensland, Roger Marshall, the president of a volunteer group that advocates for land lease (also referred to as residential parks) residents, the Queensland Manufactured Home Owners Association (QMHOA), told the ABC the land lease sector has great potential as a retirement living option, but weak regulation had resulted in some questionable business practices being allowed to continue. "It is the view of QMHOA that the factor which underpins all of the stories of dissatisfaction and concern from home owners about the way they are treated by park owners is a significant imbalance of power in the relationship between the two parties and the way in which park owners abuse their power advantage in pursuit of their own self-interest at the expense of their customers," he said. "A recurring theme in our conversations with home owners when they come to us with concerns is their feelings of being trapped and unable to do anything about the injustices of the situation they face," he said. A survey across the Queensland land lease sector in 2022 found one of the biggest concerns was rent and housing affordability. It found 60 per cent of respondents were not happy with how their last market review of site rent was conducted and 41 per cent indicated site rent increases had affected their ability to afford other essential items. On the other side of the country, in Perth, Graeme Sinden helped organise a petition that was signed by more than 125 dissatisfied residents at the land lease community he lives in. Graeme Sinden lives in a West Australian land lease community run by another operator.(Supplied) The petition, supplied to the ABC, says residents feel misled and that the facility has not met their expectations. It also raises concerns about unfairness in the rental fee structure in the village, with some residents paying more than others due to an array of different agreements. Another resident who signed the petition said the reason residents signed was that over the past three years potential residents were promised additional features and facilities by the marketing team, but these had not yet been delivered. "This is still very much a work in progress and, in fact, has now been stalled and the area is fenced off. The proposed swimming pool appears from the picture on the website to be the size of a small paddling pool – hardly functional for a village of 397 residents (whose number increases each month)," the person said. Back in Victoria, Judy Duff has seen firsthand some of the challenges with land lease communities. Judy Duff set up a grassroots group to advocate for land lease residents in Victoria.(ABC News) She tried to leave her land lease community a few years ago but the exorbitant fees made it unaffordable to buy elsewhere. "Once you're in, you can't get out and you can't afford to get out," she says. Judy decided to do something about the lack of protections for retirees and 18 months ago set up a grassroots group, Victorian Manufactured Home Owners Association, to lobby for change. She describes the situation in Victoria as a "legislative black hole". "The operators have been allowed to go on their merry way and do as they please," she says. "We need legislation, reform. We need standard leases; we need exit fees to be voided. We need dispute resolution. And we also need management to be trained in what is and what isn't elderly abuse." She has created a series of photo boards of residents living in difficult conditions, including poor maintenance by some operators. They include pictures of an uneven area where an elderly woman fell and broke her hip, a land lease operator that is selling homes in a community that lacks footpaths, requiring residents to walk on roadways with numerous potholes. Judy Duff has documented the poor conditions in some land lease communities, including poorly maintained roads.(Supplied) "Even when dry, this road is a major safety hazard," the storyboard says. In another, she says "many of these villages have hastily constructed homes with terrible building faults". "Some examples include mould growing in bathrooms, leaking windows, plumbing not connected, poor drainage and mould building up underneath houses from lack of ventilation." The day after 7.30 aired, the Victorian government said it would strengthen protections for Victorians living in land lease communities and said the commissioner for residential tenancies would lead a research project to "better understand issues impacting residents" in partnership with the Consumer Policy Research Centre and provide a report to the government by the end of the year. The government has been aware of deficiencies in the legislation for more than a decade but has continued to drag its heels. Residents are hopeful that this time they will act. Housing for the Aged Action Group chief executive Fiona York has been lobbying for change for years. In terms of whether the reforms go far enough, she is encouraged the government is starting to take the sector more seriously, but says there is still a lot that needs to be done. "We hope to see the government take action on things like unfair fees, management training and accreditation, and issues with dispute resolution," she says. Fiona York says she's encouraged the government is starting to take the land lease sector more seriously.(ABC News: Danielle Bonica) She says over the past two and a half years, one of the land lease companies about which residents contacted her organisation most for advice was Palm Lake Resort Willow Lodge, operated by Palm Lake Group. She says since new managers took over earlier this year, things have improved. "We would say this supports our claim that the government should introduce mandatory training and accreditation for retirement housing managers," she says. 'They're bullies' Donna Moore saw firsthand the dirty tactics used by this operator after she inherited her grandmother's home at the Willow Lodge community in Bangholme, Victoria, and tried to sell it. She says she was told her grandmother's 99-year lease did not exist and that the house had "serious defects," which meant Palm Lake could not consent to the sale of the home in its current state. It instead offered her a small fee. Donna challenged the operator in VCAT, saying she felt a responsibility to fight, to make it easier for the next person. "Some poor old person who has to go into aged care, they'll be left with nothing if they try to sell an older home," she said. Donna Moore challenged Palm Lake Resort in VCAT after she inherited her grandmother's home and faced difficulties selling it.(Supplied) The tribunal upheld her grandmother's 99-year lease and in a separate hearing found that the house didn't have "serious defects". Both parties to the dispute provided the tribunal with expert reports on the condition of the home. Palm Lake relied on an expert whose building licence had expired five years earlier. The tribunal found the expert report relied on by Palm Lake "appeared to be exaggerated" and not supported by the photos. It said the report included warnings of significant health and safety risks from asbestos and electrocution but noted the expert never observed these things and repeated references to "major wood rot" was not supported by the photos. Ms Moore says she sold her grandmother's home later that year for $240,000, which was significantly more than the original offer. "They're bullies, the power imbalance is so over the top," she says. She described the behaviour as elder financial abuse. "They sell the idea of a lovely retirement, but the reality is anything but." In a statement, the company said: "There are several older Willow Lodge homes that do not pass modern building requirements because building standards have changed dramatically over the past five decades." "Palm Lake Resort is protecting future purchasers of these older-style homes by not issuing a site agreement until the home complies with modern building requirements." The company said it recently spent $1.5 million on improvements to the resort, and opened a $5 million community facility for residents. Palm Lake's Willow Lodge have been challenged in VCAT before. Back in 2014, consumer advocacy group the Consumer Action Law Centre (CALC) took action on behalf of 14 residents, claiming the exit fees were an unfair contract term, operated as a penalty and were harsh and unconscionable. Some of the clients claimed they were invalid due to non-compliance under the relevant legislation. Eighteen months into the dispute, both parties settled. Willow Lodge agreed to waive the exit fees of six of the 14 residents. Two had their exit fees reduced to 4 per cent of the sale price and the others settled with a cap of 12 per cent on the exit fee for residents who had owned their home for 10 years or more. All settled on the basis a rent review clause would require the company to commit exit fee revenue to capital improvements to the community. Over the course of the dispute, some of the 14 residents were suffering declining health, including one admitted to hospital up to 10 times to treat a vascular condition, one treated for breast cancer and was waiting to move into a nursing home, one had bowel cancer, two had a heart attack, one had a neurological condition and suffered uncontrollable seizures and suffered random and uncontrollable seizures throughout the litigation. At the time CALC, said elderly consumers were not well-equipped to deal with lengthy, adversarial and stressful litigation due to their declining health. A few months later, a parliamentary inquiry into retirement housing made a series of recommendations including the introduction of a retirement housing ombudsman to help address deficiencies and challenges faced by the elderly in the existing dispute resolution process. Eight years on, residents are still waiting. The gated villages leaving retirees feeling trapped.(Adele Ferguson)
Short these leeches to zero. I'm sure you can short it on the ASX. Hopefully the whole industry goes bankrupt. It's like the Eagles song Hotel California -- you can enter but you can't leave.
The newest victims of Australia's homelessness crisis 19 hours ago https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn09g9j143no Katy Watson Australia correspondent Reporting from Perth BBC Mary, 71, became homeless when her landlord evicted her and she couldn't find another affordable place to rent This isn’t the retirement that Mary had dreamed of. The former midwife spent years living on a cattle station with her husband on the north-western edge of Australia - outside her window, the vast and ruggedly beautiful Kimberley region. Now, though, the frail 71-year-old spends most of her days and nights in her battered car. Her current view is the public toilet block of a Perth shopping centre. Mary is not her real name. She does not want people she knows to find out she is living like this. She is one of the roughly 122,000 people who are homeless in Australia on any given night, according to data from the country’s bureau of statistics. A recent government report says that 40% of renters on low income are now at risk of joining that cohort. That’s what happened to Mary. Pushed out of her flat last year when her landlord opted to lease it for short-term stays, she couldn’t find anywhere affordable on her state pension. Her husband can’t help - he’s in a care home with Alzheimer's disease. “He'd be horrified [if he knew], absolutely mortified,” she says. So now Mary’s 4x4 is full to the brim with her belongings. A walking frame lies in the back, along with piles of clothes. On the passenger seat sits a tin of rice pudding. “That’s my evening meal, every night without fail,” she says, picking it up, her hands shaking. She sometimes gets a bed in a shelter, but most nights, Mary settles down in a part of the city where more police are around. She explains she has been assaulted four times and does not want to take any risks. Every so often, Mary coughs - the after-effects of a recent bout of pneumonia she suffered after getting caught in a rainstorm. The car battery died when the windows were down, and she had no money to fix it. “It seems that the moment people know you're homeless… you become what I call a non-person,” she says. “You no longer have any value in people's lives.” Mary has spent nine months living in her car Homelessness services around Australia have reported a jump in demand amid a national housing crisis – with women and children the clear majority of those needing help. Indigenous Australians are over-represented too. In recent years, record house prices, underinvestment in social housing, a general shortage of homes and drastically climbing rents, have left much of the nation’s growing population struggling to find a place to live. Rents have risen the fastest in Perth - up an average of 20% this past year alone. In the few days we were in the city, everyone had a story to share. Hailey Hawkins tells me she and her daughter Tacisha have been couch-surfing and living in tents for nearly four years, most of Tacisha’s life. They are eligible for social housing – but waiting lists are years-long. “One week, I'll have enough money to have decent enough accommodation plus be able to feed both myself and my daughter,” she says, struggling to hold back tears. “Otherwise, it's asking money to friends, family or pretty much anyone really that is willing to help.” Michael Piu, head of St Patrick’s Community Support Centre, says they’re seeing people from all walks of life – young and old, working families and individuals alike – come through the doors. “A single trigger can push people into homelessness, and there really are very few options for them," he says. “They don't know where to start.” Is housing a ‘human right’? The housing crisis remains a national talking point, and it is no different inside the country’s parliaments. Wilson Tucker, a member of the Western Australia state parliament, recently made headlines for being a "homeless" politician – although he prefers the word nomadic. He was evicted and, despite a salary almost twice the national average, could not find anywhere else to live. But what Mr Tucker didn’t initially mention was that he is also a landlord. He says he bought the home with tenants already living there, and didn’t want to turf them out in what he calls a "red hot" property market. So now, when parliament sits, Mr Tucker stays in hotels. The rest of the time he is on the road in his 4x4 and roof tent. “But there's a lot of people out there that don't have that privilege, and they're resigned to fight over this handful of properties,” he tells the BBC. Wilson Tucker, a member of the Western Australia state parliament, made the news as a "homeless politician" Housing has also been on the agenda in the federal parliament, where MPs have been considering making it a legally protected human right. Two independent parliamentarians introduced a bill on the issue off the back of advocacy by the Australian Human Rights Commission, but without government support it is unlikely to pass. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced in this year’s budget A$6.2bn ($4.1bn; £3.3bn) to speed up the construction of new houses, provide rent subsidies, and increase the pool of social and affordable housing. States and territories also have a slew of initiatives they hope will ease the strain. But homelessness charities are crying out for extra support to keep up with the growing demand, and advocates say more urgent reform – like scrapping lucrative tax concessions for investors or increasing protections for renters – is needed. There has been criticism heaped on landlords too for hiking rents at a time when people are squeezed – and discussions about limiting increases and narrowing the reasons for which a landlord can evict a tenant. But the property industry says landlords are hurting too. In May 2022, interest rates began rising faster than at any time in Australia's history – with 13 increases over 18 months. “Most people only own one investment property and they've had their mortgage repayments [on those properties] go up by 50% as well,” says Cath Hart, chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia. She says the conditions are tough enough already, and the pandemic showed that measures like rent increase caps and eviction moratoriums only push landlords out of the long-term rental market. “What we saw during Covid… was that 20,000 fewer properties were available to rent as investors just went ‘You know what? It's too hard.’” Every night volunteers in Perth distribute food and clothes to the homeless In the meantime, every night different charities take turns offering help to those who want it. As evening falls and commuters exit their shiny office buildings in the centre of Perth, crowds of people with nowhere to go gather in a square by the railway tracks. With the Australian winter now kicking in, it is the clothes donations that are causing the biggest flurry. Supermarkets donate food, there is a laundry service, a mobile doctor surgery and a hairdresser. Also out are street chaplains, providing meals. Michelle Rumbold has joined them to help. Until a few months ago, she was the one receiving the handouts. A registered nurse, she was left with nothing after she got evicted and crashed her car. “I ended up losing my job purely because I didn't have accommodation and I didn't have a car,” Michelle says. “I think it took a while for people to actually realise I was homeless, because I didn't look homeless. Gradually, over time, you become so used to the street that you lose yourself.” Michelle managed to get transitional housing and she’s now back on her feet, working in a GP’s surgery. But she still likes to come back here and help. “It's hard to leave this place once you've been here,” she says. “It's a really odd thing to say but people become your family here.” But for every Michelle, there are plenty more like Mary, still struggling. For Mary, it’s the loneliness that hits her the most. “You’ve got no TV, no neighbours to say hi to,” she says. “People often just give you the side eye and think 'Oh God, not another one' and walk away.” Additional reporting by Simon Atkinson.