All those who think it is possible to work from home at the same time as looking after young children are obviously not mothers! Believe me very little would get done and children would get more attention at day care. It can work well once children are at school though as long as the mother isn't in desperate need of adult interaction. However it is most unfair to advocate restricting the employment of mothers to work that can be done from home - I used to be a research scientist b.c (before children) which does not transfer well into my kitchen!

I do agree with D-B though that once you have children things change somewhat and you have to make compromises. Personally I have given up paid work and do volunteering instead as it is flexible, keeps me busy and keeps my skills up. However it does nothing to help with the mortgage!

I live in Townsville, North Queensland, we have 1,000 homeless families out of a population of 200,000 people. The average house price has skyrocketed from $180,000 to $300,000 in the past 5 years.

As housing prices rise so do the rents charged, the average rents are between the $250-$300 per week mark. Many families are single income earners, on around the $500 per week mark, thus sometimes half of their income diappears on rent, the other half left to cover living expenses, childrens education, clothing etc.

The homes are nothing special, mainly low set, small 3 bedroom with little room to move, a normal home on a minature scale, $300,000.

We have families sleeping in tents, under bridges, in run dowm hostels, caravan parks etc. Ah yes the market will solve all our problems. Winston, personnaly I think it's a communist plot......

Shonga, without any disrespect to the problems of the homeless in Townsville, the reason that house prices there are increasing is because people are buying them. Also, the reason for the increase in rent is because people can afford it.

Living in a country of increasing living standards, as we do, the natural pressure on housing prices is upwards.

If the government were to engineer a reduction in the national pay-packet, which they can easily do by extracting more dollars from the productive sector of the economy and then spraying it against the nearest unproductive wall, then housing would inevitably become cheaper.

However, I doubt very much whether this would be of any assistance to Townsville's 1,000 homeless families, or the other 5,000 who would have joined them as a result of the intervention.

"The market" is not going to solve the problem of homelessness, any more than will government intervention in the market. It is a problem that is separate from any specific pricing issues, whether food, shelter or overseas holidays.

Shonga,
This appears to be the result of a long term problem with income levels in respect of rental prices in Townsville. I say that because 5 years ago (you mention that this is the result of skyrocketing prices in last 5 years), there were at least 3000 households in Townsville who were living in housing stress. That is they were in rental income that was not affordable relative to their level of income. Given that was the case it is no surprise that there are a high number now out of housing. The local council there was quite aware of these figures with regard to housing stress in 2001. What a shame there was no forward planning in this regard. Surely those figures back then should have rang some alarm bells that emergency housing would soon be required.

Coraliz,
Yes logicly you would think so, I became so concerned that I wrote to the State Housing Minister, to ask why more public housing wasn't being built to accomodate these families. The response was that the Howard Government prefers the rental assistance scheme, so it has cut Queenslands' public housing budget by $400 million dollars, along with cuts to the States in Health funding of nearly $1 billion in 2004, it has left me wondering what other funding has been cut to State services, however at least we know where the money is. Of course the cuts to the States has accumulated in a $14 billion Federal Government surplus.

Pericles, I think that you are wrong to say that government policy cannot assist with homelessness. It cannot completely solve it, but it can help minimise it. In about 1984 the federal government reduced negative gearing on investment properties. The flight of capital was so sudden and the impacts on rents so strong that it was soon obvious that a housing crisis was looming. The government had to reverse the policy and reinstate negative gearing to the chagrin of those who would like to see property investors paying full freight. Won't happen in the foreseeable future. Also, each state government and several charities with tax free status operate housing programs. For better or worse, these are all that keep some people off the street. Go to a country where there are few or no such policies and programs and you have to stepover prople sleeping out everywhere.