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The grim reality of Australia’s rental crisis: Mother-of-seven reveals she’s paying $450 a week for a mold- and rat-infested house to avoid living in her car
- Mother of seven forced to live in a rat and mold infested house for $450 a week
- Almost 60,000 people in NSW are on the waiting list for social housing
Australia’s housing crisis continues to affect families left on long waiting lists and forced to shell out high rents for appalling properties.
Herbriella George, a mother of seven, is one of almost 60,000 people in New South Wales on the waiting list for social housing, leaving her with the choice of living in a barely habitable house or in her car.
Ms. George says she has looked at 60 to 70 properties while on the waitlist over a decade and applied to each and every one with no success.
So when she saw a run-down, mold-covered $450-a-week property in South Sydney, she knew no one would apply for the house.
“I had no choice but to live in it or the other option is to live in my car,” Ms George told The Project.
Herbriella George, mother of seven, says she was forced to live in a mold and rat infested house or live with her children in her car as Australia’s housing crisis comes to a head
Ms George (pictured) is one of almost 60,000 people in NSW on a waiting list for social housing and has been on the social housing waiting list for a decade.
Ms George said the house has such a bad mold problem that she has had to throw out her belongings and the rats she calls her ‘pets’.
“I had to give up four of my children because I couldn’t afford them anymore,” Ms. Gould said.
‘There are days that I don’t even know what to put on the table.
‘It makes me cry that I can’t give my children the home they deserve.’
Census data shows that there are approximately 144,000 people in need of social housing.
Hal Pawson, of the City Futures Research Center at the University of NSW, said some families have even delisted because they are tired of waiting, while others saw no point in applying for properties due to how competitive the market is.
Pawson said the inner-city suburbs of Erskineville, Beaconsfield and Zetland are some of the toughest areas to find housing, with wait times of at least 10 years for any house larger than a one-bedroom unit.