Source: The Patriot Light | AWK Network | VIEW ORIGINAL POST ==>
As the nation’s housing crisis intensifies, Australians are being warned the spiralling cost of rent threatens to affect everyone.
Two ideas—and the politicians pushing them to help renters across the nation—might need to work together as the long-term trend of worsening affordability continues.
About a third of Australian households rent but the impacts are far-reaching.
“Increases in rent have actually been contributing to the inflation … managing rent rises is really quite critical, not just for the households renting, but for the wider economy,” economic consultancy firm SGS Economics and Planning principal and partner Ellen Witte told AAP.
Witte is the lead author of the firm’s latest rental affordability index released on Nov. 22 alongside low-income housing advocates National Shelter.
A decade into tracking rental affordability, the index warns the housing crisis has deepened as rents continue to grow faster than wages.
The latest index adds a new category for places where the rent is “critically unaffordable” and would require households to pay 75 percent of their income.
“Obviously, that’s not doable, so we now see entire cohorts of the…