Affordability constraints drag prefab portable into the rental crisis

Many strategies have been undertaken in an attempt to reduce the impact of homelessness, including private endeavours such as those committed to by Harcourts Packham in Adelaide and public strategies from a host of governments, including federal, Victorian, and West Australian. 

Now Michael Doubinski, founder of PennyGranny, has unintentionally found his business involved in the fight to save countless Australians from homelessness. The Dural-based business started fielding calls to utilise the company’s granny flats — initially hoped to be placed in the backyard of retirees to earn additional income — as relief due to an inability to keep up with rent increases or locating a property at all.

The calls came from a wide range of locations across the country. Mr Doubinski detailed that one of the company’s earliest callers was a woman from regional southern Queensland named Tracy. 

He explained that Tracy was “crammed into a tiny one-room cabin with no bathroom with her children after being evicted from her comfortable rental and given no reason by the landlord”.

“There was nothing better available. Growing increasingly depressed and looking for alternatives, she started looking online for a portable home to put on her father’s nearby property — and found PennyGranny,” he said.

“Within a couple of months, Tracy was living in a new two-bedroom home with a modern kitchen and bathroom for $280.50 per week.”

Mr Doubinski is hoping PennyGranny can be repositioned as a viable solution to combat increasing woes born from Australia’s housing and rental crises in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, and the ACT, where the business currently operates. 

He cited an Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) report that explained Australia’s social housing stock is 433,000 short of required levels, while the body also recently explained that 36,000 social houses are required to be built per annum, as opposed to the current federal government promise of 3,000.

“There’s also a dearth of private rental properties, so we are seeing a new era of homelessness, with working people who can afford to pay rent driven to live in tents or their cars simply because no rental homes are available,” he said.

“Building enough homes by conventional means in time to avert the growing crisis is simply not feasible. We’re hoping that PennyGranny can be an important part of the solution.”

In a similar vein, earlier this year, the Queensland government broadened legislation related to renting granny flats — expanding it so that home owners can rent granny flats on their property to individuals outside their immediate family.