Key Worker Accommodation: SURVEY
With housing affordability a dire issue across the Mid North Coast, RDAMNC is maintaining our focus on housing for ‘key workers’ in 2022. Key workers are people who drive our caring, hospitality, retail and agricultural industries , who are being pushed out of the rental and home ownership markets due to lack of availability and soaring prices.
An important part of our activities in this area is the key worker accommodation survey, which closes on the 15 May. This is your chance as a key worker, someone who employs or supports key workers, or someone who houses them, to tell us how the lack of affordable accommodation affects you, your organisation, and your community.
People are generously sharing their stories through our survey about their inability to access housing and the effect this has on them:
There are some properties available, but they are out of my price range. At the moment I’m paying $840 fortnight rent but had to move away from my workplace to find it so I now have a 1 hour daily commute. I am also of pension age but can’t afford to pay rent on a pension.
It is extremely hard for those on low or middle income wages to afford rentals that are available. It is even harder to be approved for a rental. My partner and I have a combined income of $100,000+ yet, we have been in a share house as we have been unable to secure our own property despite immaculate references.
Our house is not big enough for our family and although its value has increased significantly so has all the housing in the area so we are still at the ‘bottom’ of the market despite our house now being worth a lot more than what we bought it for
Sound familiar? If you have something to say about how the housing crisis on the Mid North Coast has affected you, your organisation, or your community, please share it with us. When we join our voices together, we are much more effective than alone. RDAMNC will use the information collected by the survey to advocate to government, inform the rest of our housing project, and determine future priorities.