Anti-poverty week #APW2021

Anti-Poverty Week WA would this year like to acknowledge the WA Government’s commitment to build at least 3,300 more social houses – a welcome investment that will go some of the way towards relieving the pressures on WA’s social housing system.

While we know that these issues in the housing system will not be solved over night, it is clear from this announcement and the ambitious timeline in spite of WA’s construction shortages that the WA Government is taking seriously this issue impacting so many low-income West Australians, with interim measures to update and convert existing social housing stock until new stock can be be built from 2022-23.

• More than 270,000 Western Australians are living in poverty, including almost 95,000 children.

Adequate income support:

• 1 in 10 Western Australians, including 1 in 5 children, are struggling to survive on income support payments – such as JobSeeker – that puts them below the poverty line.
• The coronavirus supplement lifted 68,000 Western Australians, including 7,000 children, out of poverty during 2020.

Affordable and safe housing:

• Australia is the third least affordable housing market in the world; more than 1 in 9 households pay more for housing than they can afford.
• More than 9,000 Western Australians are experiencing homelessness, including women and children, and more than 4,100 access homelessness services every single day;
• There are over 17,300 WA households – around 39,000 people – on the social housing waiting list;
• 50% of low income households in Western Australia are experiencing rental stress.

Universal quality education and care for children:

• We all deserve access to quality education for ourselves and for our children, regardless of our background or experiences;
• Access to quality education is a key barrier to people who are living in poverty – 43% of Western Australians experiencing entrenched disadvantage did not complete high school and more than a third have no tertiary qualifications

An end to family and domestic violence:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the factors that lead to family and domestic violence, according to a survey of WA women and statistics from WA Police:
  • Family related offences in Western Australia are up 19.3% since the start of the pandemic;
  • More than two thirds of women who experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former cohabiting partner since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic said the violence had started or escalated in the three months prior to the May 2020 survey
  • One in five women (19.9%) who experienced coercive control said that this was the first time their partner had exercised multiple tactics of emotionally abusive, harassing or controlling behaviour within their relationship.
  • Among women who had experienced physical or sexual violence from their current or former cohabiting partner prior to February 2020, more than half (53.1%) said the violence had increased in frequency or severity since the start of the pandemic

In Western Australia, leaving a violent relationship costs an average of $18,000 and takes at least 141 hours – for a women, often with dependent children, this is a significant barrier.