Lesley Scott-Smith used to be the one helping families going through tough times, but now she needs access to the services she once referred others to.
“I’m now using those same organisations to get myself through life,” she said.
“I don’t find it ironic — I find it very sad and quite worrying.”
When her rent was raised by $60 a week to an unaffordable 55 per cent of her income, Ms Scott-Smith was forced to move for the sixth time in nine years.
Less than 12 months earlier, when she’d moved into her Morwell home, Ms Scott-Smith hoped it would be her move until she moved into aged care.
“I’ve enjoyed living here and I didn’t want to move,” she said.
“But the minute that letter came and said $290 a week, I thought, ‘That’s it.'”
‘There’s a limit’
Ms Scott-Smith said she was overwhelmed by the prospect of moving again.
“I can’t do it myself — I’ve got scoliosis, I have two forms of arthritis, I need a shoulder replacement and two hip replacements,” she said.
“The amount of time that I can stand would be 10 minutes.
“Bending to put things into packing boxes — that is extremely hard.”
Ms Scott-Smiths’s family live far away she only has one friend in the area she can call for help, but her friend has health issues too.
“There’s a limit to what we can do,” Ms Scott-Smith said.
She said when she last moved, she had saved up money to pay someone to help move her, but as she didn’t expect to move so soon, she didn’t have that luxury this time around.
“I’ll have to bring the charities [in to help me],” Ms Scott-Smith said.
“I’ll ring around and see if I can get a handy volunteer to come and give me a couple of hours, couple of times a week.”
Ms Scott-Smith said she was lucky this time around only having to apply for three properties before being accepted to her new place in Rosedale.
But she had to apply for 43 places before moving into her place at Morwell and the property before that took 38 applications.
“You get to the stage where you just get so good at applications,” Ms Scott-Smith said.
“What people do that aren’t internet savvy or don’t have the computer skills and everything that I have … I don’t know how they cope.”
‘Growing contingent’
Council on the Ageing (COTA) and Senior Rights Victoria are seeing an increase in calls to helplines due to rental stress and housing.
COTA policy and advocacy manager Ben Rogers said there was a misconception that most older people owned their own homes.
“Increasingly, there is a growing contingent that are renting … which means we are seeing a growing number of older people being impacted by these rent rises,” he said.
Mr Rogers said it could be difficult for older people to find extra income when the rent went up.
“It’s taking from a static income and it means that someone’s money – whether that’s their superannuation, pension, or their earnings – often has to go further,” he said.
Mr Rogers said that was more worrying when the prices of other necessities are also rising.
“We know from research that older people in particular are willing to go through a hell of a lot, and put themselves in danger … to make sure that they are not in debt,” he said.
“Our concern is that we’re going to see more cases like Lesley in the coming years, and therefore we need a more holistic response to how we support ageing.”
Ms Scott-Smith is hoping that this will be the move that sticks.
“What really kills me is that it’s my age, and that this is supposed to be a lovely, relaxed time,” she said.
“I’m supposed to be using all my nice wool to knit a big rug, and do all this, and I haven’t touched it, because there’s been so much worry and so much organising of my life to do, through charities and through welfare, that I can’t relax for five minutes.
“That’s really very, very difficult.”
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