The new face of homelessness in Australia | Four Corners

foreign [Music] just outside bellingen on the New South Wales mid-north Coast single mum Kyla jobson is packing up her life it's kind of hard I keep going through like excited that we're out of it because a lot of the molding things inside I was worried about for my kids and the baby but I'm a bit upset because you just don't know where I'm going you want to say goodbye to your granddad I see you later kiss [Music] [Applause] ing bye [Applause] um yeah stand up yeah the rental property Kyle has been living in with her baby and her four-year-old has become a health hazard riddled with mold and asbestos so you're not going in there at the start of the year with all of the rain just at the just before all the massive floods I noticed that there were like bubbles popping up in the ceiling and you could tell that it had been leaking and then destroyed my son's bed every time it rains it just leaks straight through so me and both the kids have all been sleeping just in my room for the last four months because I can't guarantee it's not going to rain halfway through the night and I just can't can't have my kids in here if it's like this so the owner had already told Kyla they wanted to put the rent up they didn't fix the mold or the leaking roof all of that's going in the bin Kyla gave notice thinking with five months till the end of the lease she'd be able to find a property you're still playing with that like so many places across Australia rental prices here have skyrocketed about getting that done Kyla says she has unsuccessfully applied for dozens of properties the only thing I've been able to think of that kind of describes it is like feeling like you're drowning and every single time you can see the surface and you feel like you're just about to break the surface something grabs your ankle and rips you back down and you've got to try all over again to get back up to that lot but I mean my kids are definitely worth it it's just exhausting yes having a job in Australia is no longer a guarantee you'll have a house despite working six days a week to support her family Kyla jobson no longer has a place to call home it just feels like you're going in a circle all I want is for you guys to have somewhere nice and safe when she leaves this house tonight Kyla and her kids are moving into a motel room [Music] okay are you ready to quickly quickly run [Applause] okay [Applause] it's okay [Applause] [Music] this is the new face of homelessness in Australia the critical lack of affordable and public housing means in towns like this even if you have a job there is often simply nowhere to live in this episode of Four Corners decay of the Australian housing dream this used to be the sort of place that people on low to Middle incomes could reasonably expect to find a home it's not anymore we investigate what went wrong [Music] thank you [Music] it's the morning Rush at Pete's Place a drop-in center in Coffs Harbor [Music] here in heaven [Music] very nice we have a facility where people can grab a bite to eat have a bit of a rest have a shower do their washing we've got a lot of support staff here so we can work with people on rental applications or finding housing we have a lot of meals that are donated each week so people can come in and grab a feed we also have a lot of families that are experiencing rental stress that will come in and stock up on food as well so they don't have to decide whether to eat or pay their rep Pete's Place is Ground Zero when it comes to homelessness in this region when we first opened in 2018 we're seeing about 20 people a day come through the service four years later we're seeing around 80 people a day we're seeing a lot more families people with children people with disabilities our older Australians as well we're seeing a lot more people that we would have been able to move out of homelessness quite quickly a few years ago and we're no longer able to do that what's it like for you you know seeing this tired of people coming in who have nowhere to live you know I think when people come in and they say to us I've just gone into crisis accommodation and my heart sinks because I know that as much as we're going to sit with you and do everything we can to support you and we're going to apply for those hundred rentals with you we may not have an outcome and that's terrifying for them and I think it's really really sad let's have a look good price what are we saying a maximum 400 they say is my maximum wow Jessica was working in a bakery when the owner of her rental property decided to renovate and gave her notice this one's in town two bedroom yeah 320 320. that's good Jessica how many of these properties have you actually applied for so far I roughly do about 10 a week about 10. yeah so how many in total oh I've been so probably in between 50 and 60 because it's been about five or six weeks now I've applied for every week and no luck whatsoever Jessica was entitled to 28 days crisis accommodation but that's now expired there was no vacancies in town there and they have two motels they said that they use in Coffs Harbor and they didn't have any so it was a phone call to my sister she works full-time and she lives above a pub and so children aren't allowed above apartment but there was no choice it was yeah um so I slept in the back of her car that night and my son slept upstairs how old's he he's nine how is that as a mum it's scary to not know what's going to happen the next day so where are you sleeping now I've paid for my own accommodation out at the Caribbean Park it's the cheapest place I could get a cabin yes the cabin yes small cabin um that's yep 110 a night so and that's the cheapest in in tiang so while you're Jessica can't afford to keep paying close to 800 a week for a cabin if you don't get a place over the next few days what happens to you and your son well essentially he'll go with my sister overnight time I'm either if it's possible in the back of her car but if not I've got a tent and a swag that provided by Pete's Place to sleep in which that's scary could you have ever imagined that you'd end up living in a tent yeah No the scary thing is is that I don't want to lose my boy a simple thing of not being able to house my son could that there could be that or that incident like that that he could be I could lose my son and and that's not that's not fair when I've raised him so sorry I've raised him solely and um and to work so hard and to get so far and to have everything gone from underneath you I could not bear lose him and you'd be losing him because you don't yeah no not not for my own own um own choices not because you're a bad mum no it's because I solely couldn't there is no housing there is no there's and to to go through every Avenue to try and get nothing we've got a new prime minister who grew up in public housing who has some understanding of what it's like to be in this situation what would you say to him to help us help us do something to to help the low income earners and they're unemployed and their get stable housing and just help us we need help someone needs to do something for us [Music] foreign Coffs Harbor are these makeshift campsites where people who have nowhere else to go are forced to live in tents [Music] so this is one of our hot spots this is nice and secluded and we'll quite often have people with a night time that will come down here and camp they'll get down here late night and then they'll move on early early morning before the beach Walkers and things like that start and quite often have people camping and in the bush here as well Sarah Borat from not-for-profit Agency New Horizons is doing a drive around the rough sleeping campsites in the area she says the people leave during the day to avoid being moved on or fined by Rangers they're just quite simply can't afford the rent that their weekly rent's been put up too and so they've got nowhere else to go over to sleep in your towns or in a car anyone sleeping in a car is always at risk of violence people breaking into their cars people trying to steal their cars and things like that today she's heading to a local camping store I've I've spoken to them previously about buying bulk supplies for the homeless community and we're picking up some solar battery packs [Applause] hi good how are you Sarah borat's main job used to be about getting people into homes now it's about tents I also wanted to talk to you guys about pants we're handing them out things like that because we just can't give them accommodation do you have anything like that at the moment yeah down here yep is that right there yeah perfect so in 2011 when I started with New Horizons the housing market was very different to what it is now there was very much an off-peak season and on peak season so the off-peak season would be in Winter and we would get people housed in cheap accommodation really reasonable rents at the drop of a Hut basically real estates were crying out for people to move into these places so landlords didn't have vacancies we were getting people housed back in the beginning 30 people a month now we're lucky if we do maybe 10. an affordable rental has become all but a pipe dream in Coffs Harbor rental vacancy rates this winter stayed at an impossibly low 1.5 percent by contrast a decade ago they were five percent around the country vacancy rates are the lowest they've ever been it's never been this hard to find a home it's at the point now where we know that it's going to be a very long process for these people so we're actually giving them tents that's pretty much what it's come down to there's lots of people sleeping in the cars as well she says those who do have housing are often taking in extended family overcrowding is a massive issue here we'll quite often have whole families living in households when I say families I'm an extended family so Auntie's uncles grandmas grandpas and kids and things like that thank you [Music] this isn't just a story about Coffs Harbor there are towns like this Across the Nation sea change and tree change destinations where pressures like lack of affordable housing covert migration and properties being swallowed up by the Airbnb market mean there's a dire lack of homes to rent and that means the prices just keep going up in the year to August rental prices in Australia Rose 10 a new record high weekly rents in Coffs Harbor have gone up by more than 100 over the past two years that's almost double the rate of the rest of New South Wales I think people are just making a different lifestyle Choice they're realizing that they can work remotely and so they can choose their destination as far as where they would like to live and Coffs Harbor's just seem to be a lot of people's selection I guess it came down to originally it's more affordable the rise in demand for rental properties for real estate agents like Lisa Hanlon really took off in the first year of the covert pandemic and this property here now every listing attracts a large stack of applications this person here has had good long-term employment with his current company which has always of benefit on a sort of a day-to-day basis what is the impact of this in terms of people who are on Lower incomes and trying to find properties here they're really struggling so genuine people are applying for rental properties they may have good references they may have income but they're being declined because there's 20 other applications and someone else is being successful and they're not so it is quite distressing for people so she's got good rental history they're genuine people who need accommodation we've found that we've had doctors nurses other professions come into town looking for accommodation to secure their new placements here if they haven't been this they haven't been able to find accommodation quite often they have to pass up that opportunity but most affected are lower paid workers the most recent data on housing stress in Coffs Harbor found only 3.1 percent of homes here are affordable for people on a low income and of those the majority were one bedroom units [Music] if you're on a low income in Coffs Harbor and can't find an affordable private rental public housing isn't really an option either the wait list here for a government home one of the longest in New South Wales is more than 10 years foreign despite the desperate need for these homes many of them are sitting empty okay let's go local disability worker Stacy Warne is taking us on a tour of the estate where she leaves with her four children and her dad most of these homes are social housing so this house here has been empty for at least eight months it's another three-bedroom house you know it's got a good backyard all the things that we all need as a family and um yeah nothing's been done to it I'm not sure it's had any damage or anything like that but yeah it's still empty so that's really sad ie many of the roofs have such bad leaks the residents have resorted to tying tarpolans over them to keep the rain out every time it rains they still have damage coming through that across here we've got an empty house that's been empty for about oh God knows how long now and it just gets left like this you know it just gets empty it doesn't even get cleaned for those that are lived in many are run down and overcrowded this is family of six and they're living in a three-bedroom place what they classify as a small three-bedroom here yeah yeah so all three kids being two boys and one girl are crammed in one tiny room the two of them additional needs um where we've got a lot of problems in this house so yeah it's horrible we can only get one hot shower a day there's six of us in the house the roof's falling in at the back our backyard floods it doesn't drain and we get maggots because the sewage comes up all through the backyard and there's holes in the floor which the last one we had took up half of our room and it was six to eight months before it got fixed and nothing we can do about it it's a roof over our head and that's how we all have to we all have to look at it because we ring maintenance nothing happens then if we get if we look into getting things done about it we get in trouble for for fixing it so we just have to deal with it Stacy Warne has a lot of pluck she has a stable job and is desperately trying to get out she says she's applied unsuccessfully for dozens of private rental properties I'm getting to that stage in my life where I can maybe hop out of social housing and let someone else that really needs it come in but it doesn't matter what I do I've gone and I've gotten a job I work three days a week now and the other three days I do I do community work and not only do I enjoy doing my community work that I at like helping I want to be noticed by another level of society to for someone to see that I'm I'm trying to better my life and I just feel like being a single mom of four kids I just feel like I get looked at and I get characterized and it's really unfair considering I try really hard to get out of that and like I'm a disability support worker and um three of my clients at the moment are also homeless and they come to me and they say what can we do and I I send them on all the Avenues but deep down in my heart I know that if I've got no hope neither do they and it's really sad because we're we're together we're just walking along this journey where it feels like there's no there's no solution and it doesn't matter how how many support letters you get what you have behind your back you know what I've even got savings I've tried my hardest to save as much as I can and it doesn't make any difference it's just being in social housing it's like you're stuck here in the center of Coffs Harbor is what's known as The Argyle estate the estate currently has 129 social housing homes and 68 privately owned properties local Aboriginal Elder Yvette Pacey is an advocate for some of the residents in the estate the majority of them comprise of indigenous housing non-indigenous housing and homeowners these are families that have been well established that have lived here for quite a long time that have raised families in this area that consider this area their home they've had families children grandchildren extended families that have all lived within this area but more importantly benefited from living here but these homes are set to be demolished and rebuilt under a New South Wales housing scheme communities plus which only requires developers to include 30 percent social housing in their plans under that model the new Precinct is expected to create 254 extra private homes but only nine additional social housing properties residents haven't been told where they'll be housed while development takes place we have over a 10-year waiting list for social housing in Coffs Harbor just in saying that if people are transitioning from their homes where do you relocate them whilst they're waiting for their new home to be built if we're already experiencing housing shortages and accommodation shortages within our own community um how is that going to impact on them if they're not given any time frames to how long they have to wait for their new home these changes um that are being proposed are already having a significant impact on people's mental health their anxiety they're confused about what future they're going to have narelle has raised her children grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the argyle estate since 1997. so this is home for your family my home yep my home my grandkids home and I've been here for all that all them years I just can't leave I can't I don't want to leave and the area I know everyone here they're all beautiful people and we all sort of stick together what do you know about this development that's happening well they have sent out letters but some letters I can't really understand have they given you any indication when this area is being redeveloped where you will go in the meantime no now what if they put us into a motel and they're doing all this how do we know how long we're going to stay there for how do we know where we're going to go next yes you know it's it's um confusing you know what I mean what's the feeling like when you think about the fact that this is all going to change like what's the emotional very hurtful yeah because I can't see myself leaving it because there's too many memories you know there's too many memories yeah and I I wouldn't really like to leave come this way get this way she got no shoes on TIA is also helping bring up her grandchildren on the argyle estate foreign more than twice as many houses on this estate but only nine more public homes in a situation where people are waiting as long as you did yeah to get one of those homes well it's not right it should be the other way around if they're building anything and going to knock down a public housing then they need to be replaced with extra public housing how does that make you feel that there will only be nine more houses oh Roblox ropable [Music] um that's not what we are as Australians um there's my bathroom in there Tia has mental health issues and was on the social housing list for 12 years before finally getting this home eight years ago if they make this decision are you going to go no they'll have to cut me out I probably would do something so stupid I don't know I just not going anywhere this is I waited a long time I've gone through too much in life if I'm not here to help with my grandchildren and help my daughter through this things don't always work out the way we dream when we're young and to have your parents know that you know you can go home mum and Dad's there or mum or dad or whatever is like everything so I'm not going anywhere not without a fight it's fight the Coffs Harbor City Council has been trying to get answers from the New South Wales land and housing Corporation about what the future looks like for residents like Tia and narelle at the argyle development itself currently you've got about 60 of that development is social housing it's not dysfunctional it is not a problem area there's people living happily there that have been there for decades I just think that we could have more than 30 social housing there Council wrote to land and housing Corporation New South Wales government about particularly whether there'd be any additional social housing in the argyle estate Redevelopment and their answer was that they tried to maintain the current level of social housing no commitment that there'd be more social housing interesting all councilor Tony judge is shocked that so many extra homes are planned on the argyle estate with so little provision for social housing there's no criteria going to be issued to Market to say this has to be affordable housing and no guarantee that the people who are dislocated by this development will be relocated in coughs how would you characterize that decision I think it's been missold to the people in Coffs Harbor I think people in Coffs Harbor are looking at that Redevelopment thinking this is affordable housing my assessment of it is that it's not it's this is a release of currently public land to developers to do with what they will basically the New South Wales land and housing Corporation would not confirm to Four Corners how many social housing homes would be in the new Argyle development it also could not say whether residents would be relocated to but it did confirm that all profits from the sale would be invested into creating more social housing within the area how many social houses do you estimate that Coffs Harbor needs to really deal with the problem it would be in the thousands but but a start would be somewhere in the hundreds if we could just get moving this is something that's been so neglected for the last 20 years I believe there's been a 25 increase in Australia's population and a nine percent increase in Social housing we're going out the back door people have got nowhere to live people now on on income we've got working poor people in Australia that can't afford a home [Music] foreign [Music] crisis in Coffs Harbor we go to a much grander place to meet the person who has the capacity to make change [Music] all right here we are we are indeed unlike most politicians Federal housing Minister Julie Collins has an understanding of what it's like to live in social housing it's um something I've always been passionate about like the Prime Minister you know spent my only childhood in broadacre public housing so it matters matters a lot to me Ms Collins returned to the housing portfolio after nine years in opposition to find that there are towns just as stressed as Coffs harbor around the country we're miles behind the eight ball the former government clearly didn't do enough when it came to getting more stock of Social and affordable houses on the ground it clearly didn't work with State and territory ministers enough when we had our meeting of housing ministers in July it was the first meeting in almost five years which tells you how far behind the eight ball we are to that end her government has promised a building program of social and affordable homes so we went to the last election with a very ambitious policy and a broad policy and when it comes to housing what we've got is 30 000 social and affordable homes from their housing Australia future fund that we want to get up and running but ahead of the last election the Australian Council of Social Services and 70 housing and homelessness stakeholders appealed to all political parties to say Australia needs to build roughly 25 000 homes every year to fill the desperate backlog so you say that your plan is ambitious but even putting together what the states are doing and what your government is going to be doing it's still about a third of what's required well obviously we all need to be working together and that's what having a National Housing and homelessness plan is it's also about other people in the sector the construction sector the superannuation funds to try and get more affordable homes on the ground quickly so shouldn't that 30 000 figure be three times that then well we've got the constraints also in this in the construction sector you know we need to be able to build homes as fast as we can that's what we're going to do we've been in Coffs Harbor where nurses and disability workers and Retail workers and cleaners working Australians with families are homeless are couch surfing are living in dilapidated housing how is that acceptable and what are those people supposed to do in the meantime before all of this is rolled out yeah it is it's heartbreaking I've been hearing those stories myself I've been a member of parliament now for 13 years I've never had so many people come to my electorate offices I have in the last 12 months with similar stories and they're heartbreaking and they're really distressing for the people involved and we're trying to move as quickly as we can [Music] foreign [Music] until things drastically change in regions like this around the country [Music] people like Kyla jobson will be forced to live in motels [Applause] [Music] gotta be careful we're gonna have to go down this way [Applause] catch up with her again in bellingen just down the road from Coffs Harbor Kyla says she's applied unsuccessfully for a hundred properties [Music] two three it's just ridiculous and then the ones that do come up now there's two bedroom houses that I remember five years ago being advertised for 350 a week and now they're 650 700 a week and it's like I walked through that house like I and how much do you earn a week um on about 7 50 after tax yeah yeah it's okay she's living in a room behind the tavern where she's a cleaner and works at the bar okay yeah to be scared no we're here now her boss is helping her out with a cheaper room rate giving her three months to find a place don't Wanderer don't disappear so don't disappear you're gonna stay in here when I was younger my family we lived kind of rougher and when my mum and dad split up me and my siblings were all homeless with my mum for about eight months and we actually lived in the same motel for a few months while we were trying to find a place and I remember being in the motel room and just like swearing if I had kids there was no way I'd ever be in that position and do anything I could and I've I've had to apologize to my mom so many times because now I realized she was just trying so hard to just have somewhere safe for us and get us a house and it wasn't anything she'd done wrong or anything it was just the situation we were in so it did make me feel really sick thinking I'd been doing all these things to get my kids in a place that was better than what me and my brothers and sisters had and then it it just all kind of crumbled and I felt really really crap that I just oh that I had to like constantly reassure my son that this is just a new adventure like that was the main thing and then I had to try and make out like I was really excited myself that we're just gonna live at mummy's work now and then that means you get to be at mummy's work when I'm here instead of me being gone all the time yeah I'm not going to be working for very long won't be for long and it's only super quick I promise it won't be long okay super duper quick I'll be right there it's okay [Music] you want to help me you can help me another time yeah it's okay hey it's all right oh I know [Applause] [Music] thank you yep you can sit in the spare room no Jesus that way I can hear you want your toes are you gonna sit on the floor for me so Mommy can help get all the laundry with Peta you get the snow Lounge at the moment you can sit on the lounge when Mummy goes behind the bar yeah okay all right you just play with Alex for one minute while mommy runs up the hallway and helps Peter get the laundry oh God what is the Practical impact of not having a home everything and we've only got the microwave in the fridge and the toaster and Kettle so that's what I've got to work around for the kids meals or buy something at the moment Alex I'm constantly on edge especially in the middle of the night with Alex still being so young because she'll wake up and cry and I'm worried that it's gonna frustrate paying Hotel customers which will then complain which will then not only affect where I'm staying but my job because I work here I don't want anything to go wrong or anything to seem like we're annoying or an inconvenience or anything in any way because I'm just so on edge I already don't have a house if I then lost my job there would be no there'd be nothing outside the tavern gentrified bellingen is pumping a new breed of locals sip lattes browse Artisan homewares try on nice clothes while more and more of the people on Lower wages who keep this town going have nowhere to live [Music] rents went up in the bellingen area by 48 in the year to December 2021 the highest increase in New South Wales for context that's three times the average rent rise in Regional Australia in the same period and 16 times higher than the increase in capital cities starting to get a bit overwhelming but it's just you're just going to push through it it's just there's no other choice really keep putting one foot in front of the other yeah yeah like I end up laying there last night I was so tired and yet I know I still laid there for at least an hour and a half just trying to think of what okay so the next day what are we going to do the next day thank you I'm just not letting myself feel anything too much because then I'll just break down I won't be able to handle it and the kids need me to be able to be on top of my game right now so I'll schedule a mental breakdown for later in the year [Music] this little family is not asking for much [Music] 17 altogether perfect thank you what does your experience right now the raw truth of it make you think about this country it just sucks I don't want a handout or anything it feels crap like I feel like I'm a good person but don't break the law I work all the time I'll help anyone anytime anywhere all I just want is somewhere for me and the kids to be able to call our home I want people to understand that it's not sustainable to be able to live like this and it's just impossible like it's really impossible something needs to happen where there's not so many people in this position because it's yeah too much [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 753,591

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism

Id: yk4eWjYVNYg

Length: 43min 22sec (2602 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

fucking shameful this is where we are at after 20-30 years of the biggest economic boom in history, hard to stomach the politics and greed in this country sometimes

[u/yew420]

I live in Coffs, the issue is going to get worse I reckon. No opportunity for wages that meet housing price increases outside of government jobs because there is no major industry outside of tourism. Nowhere to build as it is a town pressed between the coast and a mountain range. I don’t see the redevelopment of the housing estate happening the community will push back, they won’t be able to afford to live there once it will be redeveloped, they will have no option but to fight.

[u/VolunteerNarrator]

Gov should be making an example of this landlord. Enough is enough.

Slumlords are a disgrace

[u/kbugs]

We need to be protesting for reform. These are marginalised people that are being forced into homelessness. Any other issue there would be thousands of people marching in the streets. If social justice advocates aren't motivated to demonstrate on this issue then its clear that all their talk is just moral grandstanding and virtue signalling.

[u/RightConversation461]

I cried watching this, god I hate landlords, where else can you put up a price on a degraded product, it should be against the law!

[u/stockist420]

RBA needs to break this property market, but todays .25 rise proved they are on the side of the politicians. Raise the rates so idiots who are leveraged to the tits with 5 investment properties and creating this horrible high priced rental markets break so bad , they never dare look at another house as investment.

[u/MisterFlyer2019]

Make no mistake blame the politicians for policy that allowed this to happen, and to continue. The world is full of people who are happy to exploit others to make a buck, thats just the way it is. Its a role of govt to provide a counterbalance and maintain regulations and checks and balances to blunt the trauma to society. Years of crap[ govt and crap policy have lead us here. Blame the politicians.

[u/Rmgthatsme]

Saddens me to see all these single Mums of varied ages. Where are all the men who should be expected to contribute?

[u/New-Confusion-36]

Maybe the wealthy will build a lot more cheap housing for those in need when they get their tax cuts.