Reminds me of the old USSR saying: We pretend to work & the government pretends to pay us. Here in California the wanna be Gordon Gekko Governor of ours is entirely dependent on IPO money flow from Silicon Valley to fund the state. Real inflation here is crazy high and then add in the yearly 10-15% real estate inflation and soon even the single digit millionaires will be in trouble. Oh I'm sure the insurance costs are skyrocketing in LA thanks to Trump's crazy ideas about immigration and who actually does the work the lazy Californians won't do.
My wife's family are 2nd generation immigrants from Taiwan who settled in Melbourne's far suburbs, a very unusual choice considering these where entirely white working class. Her father wanted his kids to integrate and didn't want to move to the city's Chinese neighborhood. They went to 7th day religious school and experienced plenty of racism (wife loves to brag about punching a boy in the nose for having spat at her). She was the only kid from the school to go to university (!), studying comp science because the architecture department didn't let her in. Upon graduation, she backpacked around the world for a year with money saved working through school. She returned to get an MBA and was hired by various consulting firms. She quickly realized it would be very difficult for her to rise through the ranks of a entirely white male dominated work culture and opted to try her luck in Hong Kong. There, she met a group of ABC's (Australian Born Chinese), all well educated in Australia, bankers/lawyers who struggled to find their place in Australia and moved to HK to make fortune. And fortune they made, buying Sydney harbor properties and luxurious up coast beach houses. When HK returned to China they all returned to Australia, with senior role experience or enough money to manage their fortunes. What's my point in real estate discussion? Blaming immigrants is such a pathetic, uneducated and primitive form of racism, the same "white people priority" that my wife and her friends all experienced as 2nd generation Australians, educated in the same private schools and universities that all top 10% Australians went to. And what looks more Chinese than another Chinese...All the same, taking jobs and preventing white Australia from owning their homes... Remember, my wife was the only one to go to university in her entire school? All these working class kids followed in their parents footsteps, choosing trades over school, settling in working class suburbs and expecting their kids to do the same. Nothing wrong whith that, for sure. Land of plentiful, strong unions, high pay/benefits, who needs college? Ring an American bell? But there's also nothing wrong with choosing school as the nearly only opportunity to climb the economic ladder and coming out on top 40 years later. Our ABC friends all lament the influx of Chinese development money aimed at China based investors. But, as discussed here before, they build towers that no white Australians would ever live in. These are meant for people who are comfortable living in towers and prefer views to lawns. They don't even compete with traditional Australia real estate. To this day, when we visit family in her parents suburbs, the majority are still white, although now they're a diverse group of Europeans, not just Brits. I would warn against public housing that invite more problems than they solve. I walked by a couple of these in Melbourne a few months ago and they're barely better than those we have in the US. Also, there's a lot of drugs in Melbourne and got to see a fair number of street teens with no plans and no immediate future. I also got to see how crazy urban and suburban house prices are. I simply couldn't make sense of buying to rent. A friend in Perth owns a dozen properties there and was saying she barely gets 2% return on investment after all expenses. No thank you. Ironically, there's plenty of work in Australia, at least in Melbourne. Signs are up everywhere. My kid just got in at U of Melbourne and already has a p/t job at an upcoming high end hotel paying AUD40/hr before taxes, an amount unherd of in most of Europe. I'd say Australia is a country of many contradictions. Immense underground wealth but no sovereign fund for all Australians to benefit from; Very eclectic and super dynamic multicultural cities but deep entrenched racism from white Anglo Irish who came barely 3-4 generations prior; a social safety net similar to Scandinavian countries but a countryside reminiscing of poor nations. It's definitely very confusing for an outsider like me using US references. I call Canada the US of the North and Australia the US of the South. Same roots but different evolutions.
How the housing crisis is fuelling a mental health catastrophe Dr Ehsan Noroozinejad Senior researcher June 16, 2025 Every day more Australians are forced to spend a huge share of income on rent or mortgages, putting them under intense stress. In 2024, all major cities hit record rental unaffordability: the National Shelter/SGS Rental Affordability Index reports that rents have surged so much that householders on JobSeeker or basic pensions now find every market “critically unaffordable”. As housing stress deepens, Australia is also seeing a surge in mental ill-health.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos In Sydney the median rent is $700+ a week (30 per cent of median income) and in Perth $600+ (31 per cent). Homeownership is ever more distant, vacancy rates have collapsed, and poorer renters in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane are facing similar gaps between incomes and costs. This housing stress is now routine. A recent survey found four in five renters spend over 30 per cent of their income on housing. Over three-quarters of renters and mortgage-holders say the crisis has made them fear for their financial security. The toll shows up starkly on our streets and doorsteps. Australia’s last census (2021) counted about 122,494 people as homeless on one night: including 7600 rough sleepers, and 23 per cent of those were aged 12 to 24. Meanwhile, everyday Australians tell similar stories of constant anxiety: pressure to find or keep a home, desperate rental searches, or living out of garages and boarding houses, eroding their sense of dignity. Tenants describe how endless rent hikes and knock-backs made them feel “less human”, always worried about losing any roof over their head. As housing stress deepens, Australia is also seeing a surge in mental ill-health. Decades of data show young people’s psychological distress and diagnosed disorders have soared. For example, analysis of national surveys found the share of 15 to 25-year-olds with high psychological distress more than doubled from 2007 to 2021. The proportion of young Australians reporting a mental disorder in the past year jumped from 26 per cent in 2007 to about 40 per cent by 2022. In 2021–22, three-quarters of 15 to 24-year-olds had at least one chronic condition, with anxiety disorders affecting 26 per cent and depression 17 per cent. Suicide and self-harm remain alarmingly high: they are the leading cause of death for young men (among injury deaths) and anxiety disorders the top issue for young women. In short, mental illness is now the single largest health burden facing teens and young adults in Australia. The pressure on mental health services is immense. GPs provide 85 per cent of mental-health prescriptions, and in 2021–22 people aged 12 to 24 already made up 23 per cent of all Medicare-funded mental health service users. Sharon Callister, CEO of welfare group Mission Australia, notes that one in five young people report severe distress and more than a fifth rank mental health as their biggest personal challenge. She warns “so many young people are struggling with stress, anxiety, loneliness and depression”, highlighting an “urgent need for increased mental health support”. Clinics and hotlines are overwhelmed, and long waits for care are the norm, a reality far harsher for those also battling housing insecurity. Young Australians are hit especially hard at this intersection. According to Mission Australia’s 2024 Youth Survey, a record 56 per cent of 15 to 19-year-olds named cost-of-living (including housing) as their top concern, up from 25 per cent two years ago. Housing affordability has become a daily worry: many say they fear never owning a home, or even staying housed. Housing experts say these stresses aggravate mental illness. Melbourne University’s Professor Rebecca Bentley found in 2011 that low- to middle-income people spending over 30 per cent of their income on rent or mortgage had significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression. Recent studies of young Australians echo this: those who had to move frequently or live with family for affordability reasons were much more likely to report poor mental health. The effect is not just material but psychological. Dr Priya Kunjan of RMIT’s Urban Research Centre says “the ability to dwell securely really is the bedrock of the rest of our lives”, when people lack control of their housing, their sense of stability and self-worth erodes. Repeated rental rejections can instil a “learned helplessness,” according to clinical psychologist Gene Hodgins: when every application is turned down, people may wonder “why keep on trying…?” and slip into depression and anxiety. Evidence from thousands of affected Australians confirms this. A survey by housing campaign Everybody’s Home found 66 per cent of renters said the accommodation crisis was harming their mental health, and an even higher proportion reported constant stress and fear about housing. Meanwhile, in crisis accommodations, mental health issues are the norm: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data show roughly one-third of clients using specialist homelessness services report a current mental illness, and this number keeps climbing (over 85,000 people, or about 31 per cent) in 2022–23. In short, the housing crunch is not only leaving more people without homes, it is worsening a national mental health emergency. The convergence of housing pain and mental health decline is a clarion call to the new Australian government. The evidence is clear that half-measures won’t suffice. Experts agree the solution must be comprehensive and sustained and warn that without a decisive policy response, the country faces a long-term social crisis: thousands more people losing homes, more suicides and illnesses, and a future generation scarred by trauma. Australia’s new federal government has a mandate and a moral duty to act now. The data leaves no doubt: investing in housing stability is investing in the nation’s mental health, and in Australia’s future.