Renting In Melbourne

I previously posted about renting issue here in Melbourne and recommend to everyone to start looking for places to stay before they go back for holiday in 2009. Today, I found another article that warns of the same. Let's have a look at some of the cases:

AFTER months of sleeping in various lounge rooms, Lorena Solin felt she had tested the limits of her friends' goodwill. Homeless and desperate for a place to live, the Melbourne University arts/science student moved into a garage behind a student share-house in Thornbury earlier this year.

Conditions were not ideal - the acoustics weren't great, the evenings were icy, it was difficult to get a decent night's sleep and she shared with a male garage-mate. But at a time when more tertiary students than ever are forced to take drastic measures to find a place to live - whether it be squatting or staying in parents' homes or in a hotel - it wasn't a bad option. More

People are forced to cramp 5-8 people in a small rooms in some cases. A lot of the houses no longer have living rooms as there're turn into "bedrooms" to cut renting costs by sub-letting.

The situation hasn't improved at all. The fallen AUD (to just 65c compared to USD as we speak) might even increase the purchase power of the international students. Even with the latest RBA interest rate cut by 1%, property investors are still not convinced this is the right time to get into the property market again. Recession might be just around the corner and debts will be too much to bear. It's better to keep cash on hand at the moment. With all that's happening and not happening, the rental property market will continue to very tight throughout the next few years.

Look at what my director said:

Student Housing Australia, Melbourne's largest off-campus student home placement group, reports that the 2200 student accommodation rooms it manages in 40 buildings in Melbourne and Canberra are virtually full. Carlton, the CBD and North Melbourne, areas closest to Melbourne University and RMIT, are greatly affected.
SHA chief executive Mark McDonald says 600 new apartments will become available in Melbourne before Christmas but concedes it is not enough to curb rising demand. "Purpose-built student accommodation has been short for a couple of decades," McDonald says.

Why is student accomodation so popolar these days?

"They don't have references here, they've never rented here before, they haven't had time to organise employment, so they steer towards student accommodation, which is sitting at 100% occupancy this year compared to 75% three years ago."

What are the effects on students?

"The pressure of increased rent is having an impact on students' ability to make ends meet, and the consequences of that can be working more hours, overcrowding and disruption to their study. Their general sense of wellbeing and engagement is affected."

So, what are we Christian brethren going to about it? Are we just going to sit with arms around our chest saying "I'll be praying for you to get an accommodation soon"? Can't we make a difference? I'm not sure we even pray for them these days?

We always say the international students (now including young adults) are our targets but what are we doing instead of just talking Jesus? Have we ever wondered why Christianity is no longer of their interest anymore? Because we only talk, no action. Our mouth proclaims God is love, but what are God's people (we) doing to show it?

Are we shifting responsibilities again to the Government, property investors or estate agents? Government didn't released enough lands to build, investors charging rents too high?

It seems that non-Christians organisation/people have been thinking about the welfare of the students more than us! What a shame! In our company, we are launching hundreds & hundreds apartments next year to accomodate the students. My building will be at 600 Swanston Street. It will have over 220 apartments if I'm not mistaken.

So, I urge our CLMC brothers & sisters to come together to come out with a plan to help the students who are in needs! Not so much financially we can help, but in terms of friendship, emotions, caring, help them to cope with studies, etc. Those little things that will make a difference to all students. There're no better time than now for us to show that we care for the community.

Our small groups have started distributing gospel flyers but I think it's not enough. We need to do more. We need to be more practical. We need to know their needs and try to supplement it, not just blindly give anything that's of our convenience. We need to make a difference!

Anyone care to share some ideas on this? What can we do?