When we talk about the cost-of-living crisis, most of us think about families cutting back on groceries, pensioners struggling to pay bills, or young people locked out of the housing market.

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But there is another part of the story that too often gets overlooked. It is the story of the people who keep our communities running, and who now cannot afford a place to live.

Anglicare Australia has released a new edition of our Rental Affordability Snapshot focused on essential workers. We tested over 51,000 rental listings against the full-time wages of 16 critical jobs: nurses, teachers, ambulance officers, aged care workers, childcare staff, cleaners, hospitality workers, and more.

These are the people who staff our hospitals, care for our loved ones, educate our children, and keep our services running.

The results are shocking. A nurse could afford just 1.5 per cent of rentals across the country.

An aged care worker could afford 1.7 per cent. A childcare worker, 0.8 per cent. Hospitality staff, also 0.8 per cent. Even teachers and firefighters, the very best off in our survey, could afford barely 3 per cent.

In practice, that means that in entire cities and regions, there are just a handful of homes within reach for people we all rely on. In the ACT, a hospitality worker could not afford a single property.

For cleaners, there were only 17 affordable rentals in Central West NSW, 13 in and around

© The Examiner