At least 5,500 properties will need to be built by 2036 to meet New England North West needs, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute reveals.

The state government has barely invested funds into social housing in the region since 2011, Homes North Community Housing chief executive Maree McKenzie said.

“Generally the cost of living is increasing and rent is the greatest expense any household has, rent has increased in the region over the decade and correspondingly wages haven’t,” she said.

“In fact it’s just impossible for a young person on Newstart Allowance [income support] to afford a one bedroom unit in the New England – 90 per cent of their income goes to rent if they pay the average in Tamworth and Armidale.”

The wait list for housing ranges from two to 10 years, with a large proportion of the homes now more than 50 years old. Emergency accommodation is available but only for people under serious housing stress or at risk of homelessness.

And, the number of people spending more than 30 per cent of their wage on rent is only increasing, in Tamworth it’s 11 per cent.

A quarter of people living in social housing in the region are under 25, with a lot of people with disabilities and sole parent families.

Community housing providers like Homes North are the most cost effective way of increasing social housing, Ms McKenzie said.

“The call should be for the state and Commonwealth governments to support capital grants for social housing for construction,” she said.

“And big social housing blocks are very artificial, it’s placing a lot of disadvantaged people with similar challenges all in one area, the community thrives when we have an organic mix of people.

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“That environment of people living with hardship, a high concentration of unemployed people isn’t an accurate reflection of society or a healthy environment for young children to aspire to.”

Across Australia, some 730,000 new social housing developments will need to be constructed to address the deficit in the next 20 years.

Outside of Sydney, each unit is expected to cost between $173,000 and $393,000, the AHURI report shows.

The effects of housing stress will often play out with families choosing not to use utilities like heating or cooling even when they are really needed, Ms McKensie said, especially with extremely hot temperatures in Tamworth.

“Mental health I think is the biggest price that we pay, it’s the stress of not being able to pay bills,” she said.

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