Grandparents to the rescue in the face of soaring rents
As the cost of living in Australia continues to rise, taking rental and property prices up with it, younger generations are facing a whole new host of challenges when it comes to putting a roof over their heads.
But for one woman from New South Wales’ Blue Mountains region, the answer lay closer than she ever could have anticipated.
As 24-year-old Isis Pattison told ABC’s Hack, she had been looking for an affordable rental in her local area for months when she lost track of how many applications she’d submitted, and the entire ordeal had become “ridiculous” - until she’d taken her grandmother, Debbie, along with her.
Debbie explained that her granddaughter had been looking at a yurt that “was round and connected by a little pathway. And they wanted $370 a week for it”, and that she had been shocked by the cost.
Her solution? Offering Isis a place in her own home, so that she could “save that $370”.
And Isis’ financial boost wasn’t the only benefit to come of the whole arrangement, with Debbie noting that she’d “been on my own now for nearly eight years. It’s been very lonely and expensive on my own.”
She’d been hit hard by the cost of living crisis too, she revealed, admitting that she had been struggling to make ends meet between bills and essential home items, including everything from food to electricity and heating. At the worst of it all, the grandmother had even feared she may have to sell the home she’d been making for herself since 1981.
But things had picked up for Debbie with the arrival of her new roommate, as while Isis wasn’t paying rent at her grandmother’s, she was helping out with the bills, paying half.
“It's a big help,” Debbie said. “I'm grateful and happy that she's here. I think my standard of living is a little bit better. I've got the heating on now.”
For Isis, who intended to return to university and undertake a nursing degree, her grandmother’s generosity meant more than just extra dollars in her savings account, too.
“I think it really works for us as well, because we’ve always just had a good connection,” she shared. “We understand each other, which makes it a lot easier.”
And they aren’t the only ones who’ve turned to multigenerational living to combat the crisis, with the University of New South Wales’ Edgar Liu revealing that “one in every five people” have returned home since the COVID pandemic swept the country.
Unsurprisingly, the most common reasons behind the moves were the cost of living and related finance woes. As Liu explained, “that encompasses a whole range of things from sharing bills, or finding better value and sharing costs."
Images: Getty