Rent assistance can ease rental stress, but it won’t help low-income earners find secure and affordable housing when it’s in such short supply, nor stop disadvantage being concentrated in some areas.
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Articles on Commonwealth Rent Assistance
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Rent assistance is only $10-14 per day, well below rent levels.
The big increases quoted are for “asking rents”. The rents paid by existing renters are climbing more slowly.
Advertised rents have climbed 10% in the past year. A $250 boost to benefits and a six-month cut in petrol tax won’t much help.
Analysis of online listings on common online platforms shows even modest reductions in Airbnb listings increased supply of longer-term rentals. The result was lower local rents.
Most retired renters are in poverty, very few home owners are.
Most Australians get enough to live on in retirement. Some get more they get while working, but 30% get less, and boosting super won’t help them.
Some rent assistance is paid to households who don’t much need it. Others who do need it miss out.
The government is being pressed to bring back a particularly ineffective and wasteful scheme.
Top contributors
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Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute
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Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Macquarie University Research Fellow, School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University
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Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney
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Professor, Curtin Law School and Curtin Business School, Curtin University
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Associate Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Australian National University
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Patrick Harris is a Friend of The Conversation.
Senior Research Fellow, Acting Director, CHETRE, UNSW Sydney
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ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University
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Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, RMIT University
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Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Research Associate in Housing Studies, University of Sydney
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Professor, Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
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Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
