Rental Market Surges As Government Fails Social Housing Commitments

Rental spikes across Sydney and Australian cities have drastically increased over the past decade, with social housing slipping the lowest share on record of 4.1 per cent since Labor’s induction in 2022.

Australia’s social housing system has declined amongst the pressures of demand for housing and the cost of living crisis, which has induced residents of capital cities to compete against another.

The decline has forced residents to enter the private rental market, which has not only intensified the demand, but skyrocketing prices higher than ever before.

The average Sydney weekly rent prices have surged at a rate of 50.9 per cent in 2025, from prices of $567 in 2015 to $855 in 2025.

With staggering figures increasing everyday, Sydney rent prices are rising faster than incomes and the broader cost of living.

The Australian Government has overseen the decline in social housing and abandoned it within the private market, inducing capital city residents to undertake precarious measures to survive. 

Building momentum, the Everybody’s Home campaign released a report titled Out of Reach that demanded the need for change through jarring statistics, proving the struggle of everyday Australian residents, particularly those just scraping by.

“This is a national crisis that is now pricing out everyday people right across the country,” said Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize.

Current government commitments not enough

Social housing within Australia’s capital cities has declined from 4.7 per cent in 2013 to 4.1 per cent in 2024.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council proposed two targets to offset change in rebuilding Australia’s housing system, ‘A Decade to Six Percent’ and ‘Two Decades to Ten Percent’.

A Decade to Six Percent aims to restore social and affordable housing to six percent of housing stock. Demanding that Australia would need to provide 790,000 social housing dwellings, excluding the existing 426,000 that remain inundated. 

“Right now, around 4 per cent of all homes are social housing. To reach 6 per cent, Australia must build more than 36,000 additional social housing dwellings every year for the next decade. If we want one in ten homes to be social housing, we need to build an extra 54,000 social homes every year for 20 years. Whichever way you look at it, the scale dwarfs current government commitments and lays bare both the enormous demand and decades of chronic underinvestment,” Azize said.

The Federal Government has committed to granting 30,000 social housing dwellings over 5 years, which is an underwhelming number considering the requirements to achieve the six per cent goal.

Both proposals aim to diminish the pressures, but look towards building and constructing systems that are capable of sustaining current and future needs.