Families renting

Our Victorian colleagues, the Tenants' Union of Victoria, are in the media today with some research into the growing proportion of families with children who live in rental housing.

For your info, Brown Couch number-cruncher Leo has pulled out from the 2011 Census the equivalent figures for New South Wales*:

Private rental households (NSW), 2011

Single                     25.3 per cent
Couple                    19.8 per cent
Family                    41.5 per cent
Group                       9.6 per cent

In fact, almost a quarter of all persons living in rental housing in New South Wales are aged 14 years or younger.

The problems of unaffordable rents and insecurity of tenure – not to mention restrictions against growing households – affect not just the adults who sign the leases, but children too.

* The Census, properly, refers to couples without children as a type of family. For consistency with figures as presented in The Age, we've accounted for them under the category 'Couple', separate from the category 'Family', which here means family with dependent children.