There were 17,000 rental properties available. A NSW teacher could afford just 550 of them

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Sydney’s rental crisis is now so stark that only 1 per cent of properties would be classed as affordable for essential workers, with no affordable rentals available on the northern beaches or Sutherland for teachers, aged care workers or hospitality staff.

The findings of new research from Anglicare Sydney will heap more pressure on the Minns government to deliver substantially more housing for the state’s key workers, who are often on low wages and pushed out to fringe suburbs and forced to commute long distances to work.

Aged care worker Craig Jackson is one of an increasing number of essential workers who cannot afford to rent anywhere near their workplace.

Anglicare Sydney’s annual Rental Affordability Snapshot report reviewed 17,028 rental listings across NSW over a single weekend in March. Affordability is classed as a worker spending no more than 30 per cent of wages on housing.

Across NSW on that weekend, there were only 553 affordable rentals (or 3 per cent) for a school teacher, 206 (2 per cent) for an aged care worker, 162 (1 per cent) for a hospitality worker and 228 (1 per cent) for a social and community services worker.

Only 1 per cent of rental listings were affordable for essential workers in Greater Sydney and there were no affordable rentals available for essential workers in the northern beaches and Sutherland, the snapshot report found.

The findings show that Greater Sydney had most of the rental properties advertised on the snapshot weekend in NSW (74 per cent), but the essential worker occupations studied could only afford between 0.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent of them.

“To put this data into context, there were 33,904 aged or disabled carers living in greater Sydney in 2021, but in the snapshot these people could only afford 50 rental properties,” the report said.

“There were 35,252 early childhood educators, but they could only afford 22 rentals.”

Craig Jackson is a care manager in Paddington but commutes up to 90 minutes in each direction every day from his home in western Sydney. Living near his work is out of the question, he says, with some rental apartments near his workplace advertised for thousands of dollars.

“Most days I’m on public transport for up to three hours, which is a big chunk of my day. If I could live closer to work, I might be able to have some time for myself,” Jackson said.

“It’s got to the stage where I don’t even bother looking at rental listings any more. I know the prices will be out of reach, so there’s just no point.”

Rob Stokes, the group executive – housing at Anglicare Sydney, said: “The data is confronting. Greater Sydney has the most rental listings in NSW but the least affordable options for essential workers, while some areas show no affordable rentals at all.

“We need a reliable pipeline of well-located affordable homes, backed by planning and renter protection settings that actually deliver keys in doors.”

Stokes, the state’s former planning minister, said faith and charity land should be made available for affordable essential worker housing, and a portion of new major developments should be set aside for these workers.

The report said that at the time of the snapshot, median rents in Greater Sydney were $775 per week for houses and $725 per week for units.

“This level of rent for a unit would require between 65 per cent and 88 per cent of the income of the key workers in this study,” the report said.

Housing essential workers is a major challenge for the Minns government. A parliamentary inquiry this year heard that housing is so scarce in parts of NSW that employers rent properties on behalf of hospitality staff, and some public health workers resort to sleeping in cars to avoid long commutes.

Earlier this month, the Minns government announced that a former Sydney Metro construction site on Sydney’s north shore would be converted into as many as 1500 new homes, including 180 build-to-rent apartments for essential workers.

It will be the second site secured under the government’s $450 million investment in 400 build-to-rent homes for essential workers in Sydney. There are 220 essential worker homes being developed in Annandale.

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