‘I feel like I’ve failed’: The psychological toll of the rental crisis

It’s a brisk Perth autumn morning and 26-year-old Madi is sitting in a courtyard in her pyjamas cradling a warm cup of coffee.

She can see a grey sky through the branches of the trees as they sway in the wind.

Madi’s up early for a phone interview with ABC RN’s All in the Mind, and she’s outside because she doesn’t want to wake up the rest of the house.

She recently moved in with her partner’s family, and although she’s grateful to have a roof over her head, the situation is far from ideal.

“As accommodating as everyone is, and as loving and caring as everyone is, you just feel like you’re stepping on someone’s territory and invading their space.”

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Madi and her partner made the move out of necessity, after having dozens of rental applications rejected.

They joined queue after queue of desperate home seekers, competing fiercely for even the most overpriced dives. One dark and dusty old place felt “like someone had died in there”, she recalls.

And she’d be lucky to find something longer than a six-month lease on offer.

But despite both having full-time incomes, Madi and her partner were knocked back — again and again.

Madi felt like she was either begging for a house, or having to “sell” herself to real estate agents “like a product or like a service”.

Worse, she started feeling like it was all her fault.

“It’s just really crushing.”

Her story is increasingly familiar.

And the psychological toll of the rental crisis can not only bring you down, but research suggests it can affect your very sense of self, and even warp your view of the future.

Housing crisis linked to poor mental health

Back in 2011, Melbourne University social epidemiologist Rebecca Bentley carried out her first investigation into the link between the housing crisis and mental health.

She looked at the psychological effects of rising rents and mortgages on low- and middle-income earners.

When this group started spending more than 30 per cent of their income on accommodation, they were more likely to be at risk from conditions such as anxiety and depression.

“We actually saw, at the population level, a negative impact on their mental health,” Professor Bentley says.

“It was definitely an issue that affected lower income households or median income households more. But now I think it’s much more global.

“Even people who are earning a decent income are still struggling in the housing market.”

Home ownership is increasingly out of reach, while at the same time median rents are at a record high, and vacancy rates at a record low.

Professor Bentley’s research has found that renters are more likely to suffer negative mental health from housing stress.

And more recently she’s found “double precarity” — a combination of insecure housing and insecure employment — is linked to even worse consequences for mental health and wellbeing.

A generational issue?

A study released last year showed growing housing stress over the past two decades has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of people who have moved back in with family.

And while some do well in this environment, the same can’t necessarily be said for many who move back in their 30s, or even late 20s.

“We looked at their mental health and found probably one of the biggest negative impacts on mental health [linked to housing stress],” Professor Bentley says.

But while we hear a lot about younger generations being particularly disadvantaged when it comes to housing, Professor Bentley says it’s not so black and white.

True, as a group, she’s found renters are more likely to be affected, and these tend to be younger.

But for people in their 50s and 60s who, for whatever reason, are having problems finding affordable accommodation, the repercussions can be more significant.

“It actually hits them harder than younger people,” Professor Bentley says.

This is likely because older people have less capacity to increase income or move elsewhere, she adds.

The psychology of housing insecurity

While Professor Bentley’s research highlights the role of housing-induced financial stress on mental health, other research focuses on the psychological dimensions of housing insecurity.

“The ability to dwell securely really is kind of the bedrock of the rest of our lives,” RMIT Centre for Urban Research’s Priya Kunjan says.

But ever since housing was “commodified” after the Industrial Revolution, a growing number of people have been affected by insecurity.

When people can’t pay rising rents, they’re faced with the uncertain quest to find a new home they can afford, Dr Kunjan says. And if they have to move far from their original home, this comes with its own stresses.

In ongoing ARC-funded research on “precarious dwelling”, Dr Kunjan interviewed a small but diverse sample of Victorian renters, and found they placed enormous value on staying within their community.

Dr Kunjan found that when people did have to move, they made an effort to stay in the same suburb at least, so they could keep their connections with neighbours for example.

“Being priced out of those areas was a massive disjuncture for people.”

Lack of control and ‘learned helplessness’

Dr Kunjan found renters were stung by their lack of agency: “It’s just this feeling like their lives, their housing, was at the whims of others.”

And this is something psychologists say can be bad for us.

When people feel they don’t have control over their lives it can lead to self doubt, even in the most positive of people, clinical psychologist Gene Hodgins from Charles Sturt University says.

Repeated knockbacks to, for example, rental applications could lead to a “learned helplessness”, Dr Hodgins says.

“It’s nearly like a coping mechanism of ‘why keep on trying if you’re going to keep on getting a bad outcome?'”

And this, in turn, can lead to depression and anxiety, which makes matters worse.

Without enough self-esteem, we might also generalise hopelessness to other areas of our lives, like whether it’s worth applying for certain jobs, Dr Hodgins says.

All this resonates with Madi.

Her experience looking for a place to rent left her feeling she had no autonomy, and she didn’t know what else she could do.

“You know, I’ve got the job. I’ve tried to save the money. I’m trying to be an active member of my community. I’m trying to do all the things that I would expect of myself and that I think my family or the greater community would expect of me.”

Forcing compromises and warping the future

Dr Kunjan found housing-related stress could not only lead people to compromise on their health or activities that brought them joy, but it could also warp how they thought about the future and their place in it.

Having no sense of where they’ll be down the track can put someone in “limbo” waiting for their life to start.

And this may influence decisions such as whether they start a family or invest in local relationships.

Madi tries not to think too far ahead, but her constant preoccupation with finding affordable housing makes her dreams feel less obtainable.

“I’ve always been in the social services or community services-based jobs, and that’s what’s made me the most happy,” she says.

“But I’m now thinking about something like mining, or going into mining admin, just so that I might have a chance at getting a house or getting financial freedom.”

It’s something she would never have thought of doing before.

Still, Madi recently had a lucky break, and managed to find a rental at a friend’s place for “mate’s rates”.

“I call it my golden goose,” she says.

Now she and her partner can stop living out of storage containers and get their dog back from being cared for elsewhere.

But her gratitude is also tinged with sadness.

“My heart is still heavy with empathy for those who don’t have friends and family in positions to support as ours are.”

Listen to the full episode about how the housing crisis is warping people’s view of the future and subscribe to All in the Mind go explore other topics on the mind, brain and behaviour.

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