Some businesses in NSW say a shortage of affordable housing has forced them to buy properties to retain and attract staff in a bid to address a severe worker shortage.
The strategy has been implemented by a club in Merimbula on the NSW Far South Coast after it was failing to retain staff.
Darcy Francisco moved to the town in November to take up a job as a bar manager. He initially lived in a privately listed rental, but ended up couch-surfing at a friend's not long after his rental was scheduled to be demolished.
"There are absolutely no rentals in town that aren't exorbitant in price," he said.
Although struggling to find somewhere to live, Mr Francisco was also trying to staff his bar with workers from his former stomping ground in the NSW Snowy Mountains.
But they needed somewhere to live as well.
"About three or four people wanted to come down, but couldn't because of the [lack of] accommodation, so we missed out on quite a few staff," he said.
It got to a point where he considered moving back to the Snowy Mountains, when his employer stepped in with an offer.
Businesses think outside the box
Earlier this month, Far South Coast business Club Sapphire secured a four-bedroom unit in Merimbula to house current and potential staff.
Chief executive Damien Foley said it was the first time the business had bought a property to exclusively accommodate employees, in a bid to retain and attract staff.
"We needed to take the situation into our own hands and purchase a property," he said.
"We've got two of our staff moved in immediately, and there are two bedrooms we expect to fill quickly."
Mr Foley said pandemic-induced tree changers, as well as the impacts of Black Summer, had likely contributed to the limited housing supply, causing rental and housing prices in the region to rise.
"We've had a number of situations where we've attracted potential employees from outside the area that want to move here," he said.
"We couldn't sit back and do nothing."
Long-term solutions needed
It is a similar situation on the NSW North Coast, where the Casino Food Co-op first took action last year to address the housing crisis and its impact on its workforce.
In 2021, the farmer-owned meat processing company spent about $1 million on 10 accommodation pods to temporarily house 60 workers on site.
Chief executive Simon Stahl said that with the recent floods, the arrival of the pods was well timed.
"Rentals are very tough, very tight so we had to do something about it."
The food co-op expected the pods to be ready for workers within the month, and the company was looking into the possibility of buying land elsewhere to build additional long-term accommodation.
Mr Stahl said the company had to act now to prepare for the future, but conceded the pods were a band-aid fix.
"We aren't losing sight that this is only a temporary solution.
"We need long-term solutions."
Housing an election issue
Australia's housing market has been reshaped since the pandemic, with regional areas absorbing a large migration of city dwellers.
According to data from SQM Research, in the past two years, the average weekly rent on the NSW South Coast has risen by 46.5 per cent, while the NSW North Coast has experienced an increase of 29.6 per cent.
Although it is not a singularity in NSW.
The national residential vacancy rate remains as low as 1 per cent, and housing affordability has been referred to as a national-level crisis by welfare and property groups across the country.
Both the Coalition and Labor have pledged to improve the state of housing across the country as the May 21 federal election nears.
NSW Shadow Minister for Housing Jason Clare said housing affordability was a political platform for the party.
"Everybody in Australia knows we have a housing crisis and that housing affordability has got worse under Scott Morrison, not better," Mr Clare said.
Meanwhile, Minister for Housing Michael Sukkar, in a statement, said, "first homebuyers [have] reached their highest levels in 12 years," under the Morrison government.
