Rampant price rises and stagnant wages are driving critical workers such as aged care staff out of their sector and making housing more out of reach for a wide breadth of the community.
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For Sarah Clark, a single mum to four children and a full-time university student, retelling her ordeal of searching for a rental property in Wollongong in the second half of 2021 almost brings her to tears.
When the property she and her family were living in was going to be put up for sale, Ms Clark began to look for a new home.
"It was the most stressful six months of my life," she said.
Ms Clark describes going to open homes where the number of other prospective tenants caused a traffic jam and calculating that a below-standard property would place her in extreme financial hardship.
"It was getting to a point where I would be willing to take anything that was on offer and eat two minute noodles if I had to," she said.
Despite widening her search as far as possible and increasing her budget, Ms Clark was facing the prospect of moving with her four children into her parents' two bedroom unit.
Just 10 days before the changeover of owners Ms Clark was successful in her application for a unit through affordable housing provider Housing Trust.
"It was like winning the lottery," she said. "I feel like we've been saved."
Ms Clark is just one of the hundreds of applicants to the Housing Trust for affordable housing in the Illawarra, numbers that have only increased as food and petrol prices rise and the private property market skyrockets.
In new research from community housing provider group PowerHousing Australia, the electorate of Gilmore, which stretches from Kiama to Batemans Bay, has seen the greatest percentage house price growth of any federal electorate.
The almost 40 per cent increase in the median dwelling price - from $633,160 to $833,384 - in one year has added an additional 10 years to the mortgage of a typical household.
CEO of PowerHousing Australia, Nicholas Proud said the rapid increase is leaving many in similar situations to Ms Clark.
"This puts home ownership outside of the reach of many households in the region where current rental supply is vastly outstripped by demand."
The unaffordability of housing is compounded by stagnant wages in key sectors such as aged care.
Illawarra aged care worker Shellee Gibson said she has barely seen a pay rise in the 10 years she's worked in aged care.
"My wage has only increased by $1," she said.
The lack of a wage rise has gotten to the point where Mark Sewell, CEO of not-for-profit aged care provider Warrigal, is advocating for a pay increase as part of current enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations underway before the Fair Work Commission.
"I'm an advocate for big increases for all aged care services in Australia," he said.
Ms Gibson said she is seeing many of her colleagues move to the disability care sector where they can access higher wages, with those left having to complete more tasks with less staff.
"All the residents that come in are higher care and have a lot more needs. We can't meet them, we don't have the staff."
Illawarra aged care nurse Linda Hardman said that while pay is a significant factor, a lack of respect for the work that aged care staff do compounds the issue.
"We are looking after frail, elderly Australians, people who have worked so hard to make this country what it is today. They deserve a system that respects them, and we as workers deserve to be properly remunerated for what we do," she said.
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