Housing has become the biggest cost of living issue all over Australia and there is a significant crisis, according to a coalition of national housing, welfare and community sector organisations to highlight the problem of housing affordability in Australia.

The Australians for Affordable Housing (AAH) is a new campaign to challenge Australian governments to address housing affordability. AAH’s analysis: Australia’s broken housing system released today reveals the dire state of the Australian housing market for those trying to secure affordable housing.

In Queensland, for instance, housing costs are both the biggest item in household budgets and the fastest increasing cost – having increased 67 per cent in Brisbane over the last six years.

AAH spokesperson, Sarah Toohey said that in Brisbane it is becoming harder and harder to secure affordable housing as it now takes 6.7 times annual average income to afford the median house up from 4.5 times in 2001.

“In the last ten years house prices have risen by 147 per cent while incomes have risen by only 57 per cent and in the last five years rents have risen at twice the rate of inflation,” said Ms Toohey.

“Australian households are paying more than they can afford for housing, with over 740,000 renters and more than 380,000 mortgaged home owners reporting significant financial stress.

“Despite significant investment in recent years, there is less public and community housing properties now than there was in 2003.

“Housing stress affects renters, first time buyers and home-owners. The Queensland housing system is failing too many people and successive government policy settings have contributed to this failure.

The AAH is calling on the state governments to commit to working with federal and local governments to solve this crisis.

“It’s time for a new approach, to develop a concrete plan to fix our housing system,” said Ms Toohey.