• Anglicare Australia released their annual Rental Affordability Snapshot in April.
  • Not a single property – or even a room in a shared house – was deemed affordable for someone on Youth Allowance across the entirety of Australia, with over 45,000 properties reviewed.
  • Average rents were revealed to be $200/wk higher than pre-pandemic levels.
• At the Tasmanian level, not a single property was affordable for those on an Age Pension, JobSeeker, Disability Support Pension, or Single Parenting Payment – these groups making up over 130,000 Tasmanians, over 22% of Tasmania’s population!
  • Available properties have decreased by over 57% across the last decade.
  • Percentage of affordable properties out of those available has equally fallen from just under 30% to just 5% across the decade as well.
• Tasmania is in the worst housing crisis in recent memory – and some of those most affected and disadvantaged are university students.
  • The TUSA State Council calls for the Federal Government to increase rental support payments in line with rental increases.
  • We call on the State Government to seriously invest in social housing, to introduce rental increase caps, to reiterate our calls for an Empty Homes levy.
  • For State and Local Government to work together to place restrictions on short-stay accommodation and to reintroduce properties back into the long-term rental market.