Imagine trying to rent and live in the Byron Shire on a fixed income of $600 a week?
That’s what scores, if not hundreds, of older people in the Shire are facing, as rapidly-accelerating rents leave the old age pension in the dust.
The result, according to long-term local, Anjali Walsh, is a growing experience of financial stress, isolation, and loneliness.
Having arrived with the first wave of hippies 50 years ago, Ms Walsh has watched her community age and has observed that, in recent years, some have experienced a rapid deterioration in their quality of life.
‘What I’ve discovered from talking to people who are ageing in this community is that there are serious shortfalls in our care for them,’ Ms Walsh told last week’s Byron Council meeting.
‘Trying to pay rent and run a car and all the other things we already know about. It’s very difficult to do all of that on $600 a week.
‘They’re struggling and they’re invisible because they’re not out on the streets and they’re not going to movies and they’re not interacting with other people which is what they need to be doing.’
Positive ageing
The meeting heard that Byron Council developed a policy for positive ageing in 2010, but this was abandoned ten years later for unspecified reasons.
Ms Walsh called for Council to reengage with its older residents, undertaking a study to determined how many are in financial distress.
‘It looks like there’s about 2,000 people in this area over 75, and what I’m trying to find out from Council is how many of these people are renting,’ she said.
‘Those renting on a pension are the group that I’m worried about, because they’re the people I’ve started speaking to and they have told me that they’re spending their whole time worrying about survival.
‘They don’t interact, they don’t have things working because they’re too broke.’
She also called for Council to help set up an elders’ hub where older locals can connect.
‘We need a place where elders can speak and can share their views and can have a voice,’ Ms Walsh said.
‘That’s what I’m hoping Council will gather together and help organise – a voice for older people.’
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