Priced out of 'cheap' suburbs - The Age

Alex Presincula says if he is unable to find somewhere else he can afford to live, he will have to couch-surf. Photo: Joe Armao

Melbourne has long been an expensive place to find a home, but now low-income renters have been squeezed out of even the city's poorest suburbs by soaring rents.

In suburbs traditionally associated with cheaper housing, such as Dandenong, Frankston and St Albans, only a tiny number of tenancies are affordable for a person on a low income, according to data analysed by advocacy group the Council to Homeless Persons.

The figures show that over a 10-year period, the availability of affordable rental in many areas has almost vanished, forcing tenants to live in ''housing stress'', where more than 30 per cent of income is spent on housing. Across Melbourne, less than 1 per cent of one-bedroom homes were affordable to a person who lives on unemployment benefit, which is $255 a week, or $36 a day.

And in the city's cheaper pockets the story is not much better, according to data the council sourced from the state government's Office of Housing.