Single Mom Now Facing Homelessness after Landlord Doubles Rent

A full-time nurse who is a single mother went viral after revealing she might be homeless in the new year. Jakki Brooking (@jakkibrooking) uploaded a viral post to her TikTok account where she talked about how a change in building ownership in the property she was renting excluded her from a low-income NRAS rental program.

As a result, Jakki says, her rent more than doubled, resulting in a weekly cost of $630, up from $300 a week. She tearfully asked for any suggestions from her viewership as to what steps she could take as she stated she was having difficulty getting placed into any additional rental units as her application was rejected from several places.

Jakki begins her video by stating: “So basically I’ve lived in my rental for the last six years,” she says, sniffling into the camera. “The house that I live in now is part of an NRAS scheme or it was when I first started renting it so they keep rent affordable for low-income owners.”

However, it seems that the property’s been re-graded ever since a new owner took over the building: “The house was recently sold and the new owners didn’t want to go ahead with the same low-income scheme so they’ve chosen to increase the rent from $300 which is what I’m paying now to $630 a week.”

Gutted, the TikToker explains that she is not in a financial position to afford the hike in rental costs: “I obviously can’t afford to pay that. I’m a, I feel so f—- stupid doing this s—, I’m a single parent…like contacting my real estate agent trying to be like, trying to find somewhere else to go, my lease is up on the first of January.”

Unfortunately, she says, that she’s been attempting to apply to different houses but hasn’t had any luck in securing a place to live: “I’ve been applying to houses and I’ve been getting rejected for all of them. There was another rental available that was also part of the NRAS scheme, if you transfer from one NRAS property to another it doesn’t count as an existing tenant.”

She says because of this particular brand of bureaucracy that she’s technically classified as a “new” resident and therefore doesn’t get to carry over her previous rental rate, which she clarifies in a text overlay of the clip which reads: “I meet the income limits for an existing tenant, but don’t meet the income limits for a new tenant.”

Jakkie continued to write: “Even though I’d just be moving from one NRAS property to another, it doesn’t count as being an ‘existing tenant.'”

She expounded on the difficulties in moving to another NRAS property: “In my last email to the real estate agent I think I said something along the lines of I told her I have been applying for houses, I’ve been getting rejected for all of them.”

She didn’t mince words when describing the dire straits her and her child were facing as a result of her rental unit’s new building ownership: “We’re facing homelessness from the end of the lease because I can’t afford to pay the $630 and her response to that was that if I don’t vacate the premises by the first of January then the owners can take me to court.”

Jakki says that despite working a full-time job as an RN, she still can’t seem to make ends meet and has been having a difficult time finding a place for her and her kid: “I work as a registered nurse at one of the hospitals in Perth I have a permanent contract I just don’t know what I’m meant to do at this point. Like this is literally so embarrassing.”

Thankfully, she says, that in the event she can’t secure a more permanent living situation in the near future that she has managed to find a place for her son (and presumably her) to live in, but their pets and belongings are a different story: “I have somewhere for Levi to go at the end of the lease if we don’t find anywhere in between now and then. I need to find somewhere for our cat and dog to go. Rent a storage unit to put all our stuff in.”

She ended her clip with an exhortation from her followers asking if they have any recommendations as to what her next move should be: “Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions Let me know. I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes now so I better go inside,” she says at the end of the clip before it ultimately closes out.

Several commenters sympathized with Jakki’s plight with one commenter writing that her problem is unfortunately a result of the current spike in home buying/rental costs in Australia: “the housing in Australia is ridiculous, no one should be paying $600 a week to live in a house”

According to the REIWA, the weekly living costs of rent in Perth, Australia, where Jakki’s unfortunately soon-to-be-former apartment is located, $600 a week for rent is a record breaking cost in the area.

“Perth’s median dwelling rent price rose to a new record of $600 per week in November. This was a 1.7 per cent increase on October and 20 per cent higher than the same time last year. The median weekly rent for houses rose to $610, a 15.1 per cent increase from November 2022, while units remained stable at $550, which was a 17 per cent rise on a year ago,” the resource writes.

Home ownership costs in the area aren’t looking any better, either: “Perth’s median house price reached a new high of $585,000 in November as houses continued to change hands in record time,” the real estate outlet penned.