Australia’s mass immigration program might be a dream come true for developers, since it provides an endless flood of new residents and pressure for development:
However, it is a nightmare for the working class, as evident by the surge in rental stress and homelessness across migrant-stuffed Western Sydney. From The ABC:
Western Sydney has been revealed as Australia’s epicentre of rental stress — home to four of the country’s top six property pressure points, according to a new report…
NSW electorates took 11 of the top 20 places on the national rental stress table…
Rental stress occurs when a person in the bottom percent of earners pays more than a third of their income on rent.
The Everybody’s Home Campaign, a coalition of not-for-profits seeking to end homelessness, commissioned the report from the University of New South Wales.
They said the analysis busts the myth that housing affordability is an inner-city issue…
Campaign spokeswoman Kate Colvin said western Sydney electorates had absorbed a disproportionate share of Sydney’s population growth, which had helped drive demand for rental properties.
“In Fowler, rents increased by nearly 30 per cent between 2011 and 2016 and incomes for the lowest income household increased by just 5 per cent,” she said.
“It means a growing number of people are being stretched to the limits of what they can pay for rents and are often doing without meals and other essential items.”
Fowler’s population grew by over 15,000 people between 2011 and 2016, Blaxland by 16,000, McMahon by 22,000 people and Watson by 13,000 — compared to Warringah with an increase of just 534 people or Hughes with an increase of 2,600 people.
Rental stress was also driving a rise in homelessness.
In south western Sydney for example, homelessness increased by 61 per cent over a five year period.
With Sydney projected by the ABS to add another 4.5 million people in just 48 years, purely via mass immigration:
Low-income households will be squeezed even further.
Slash immigration.
