A WA couple and their child have been forced to sleep in their car amid the state’s housing crisis.
Narelle and Ray*, from Forrestfield in Perth, lived in a rental home until two weeks ago — when it was sold out from under them and they found themselves with nowhere to go.
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With a budget of $500 a week, they have been battling to secure a new property and so the family of three has been forced to sleep in their tiny hatchback in the meantime.
“(Our car) is our home,” Narelle told 7NEWS.
“This is our life at the moment.
“We sleep in our car and people walk past with their dogs in the morning … they look at you like you’re nothing.
“You know, they look at you like you’re drug addicts or you’re alcoholics and we’re not.”
Narelle and Ray have been rejected from multiple properties after queuing in long lines to inspect them.
Securing a new home is “impossible”, Narelle said.
“Absolutely impossible (and) disheartening,” she said.
“It breaks you mentally, physically and emotionally.
“We’re trying to stay strong and positive, we really are.”
Both Narelle and Ray have chronic health conditions and are on the priority public waitlist.
They had hoped for a home anywhere in the eastern suburbs before their 12-year-old starts school on Wednesday.
“I feel like a bad mum,” Narelle said.
“Because I don’t have a room for my daughter.”
Jane Armstrong from Homelessness We Care Perth has been on the front lines of the homelessness crisis for eight years.
“I’ve never seen it quite this bad,” she said.
“Ordinarily we’d be able to locate (a rental), even if it was just a flat or a caravan. Somewhere temporary for a little while.
“There’s no space.”
Perth’s vacancy rate has now been less than 1 per cent for several years.
“COVID radically reshaped the housing market,” the WA Government said in a statement.
It has boosted funding by 23 per cent and added 1850 social homes to the state.
There are 1000 more social homes under contract or construction, it said.
*Surnames withheld for privacy.
-With Syan Vallance