Across two continents, a mounting crisis is reshaping the lives of families, workers, and business owners: the soaring cost of housing. From the bustling suburbs of Australia to the small towns and cities of Maine, the ripple effects are everywhere—leaving nearly a million Australian children in poverty and threatening the very survival of beloved local restaurants in the United States.
In Australia, the numbers are stark. According to data released on November 10, 2025, by the Curtin Economics Centre and the Valuing Children Initiative, almost one million children—specifically, 950,000—are projected to live in poverty this year. That’s 15.6 percent of all Australian children, a figure that’s up 33 percent in just four years. As Professor Alan Duncan from Curtin Economics Centre put it, “This rise in child poverty is not a statistical anomaly; it’s the predictable result of housing stress, inadequate income support, and policy drift.” He warned, “Without meaningful intervention, Australia risks crossing the one-million-child threshold within months.”
So what’s driving this surge? The answer, in large part, is skyrocketing rents. From 2021 to 2023, median advertised rents for units jumped 40 percent in Sydney, 34 percent in Melbourne, and 41 percent in Brisbane. And it hasn’t stopped there. Rents have continued to climb, pushing more families to the brink and thrusting more children into poverty. The data, drawn from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, paints a picture of a country where the cost of simply having a roof over one’s head is outpacing wage growth and social support.
Advocacy groups like End Child Poverty are sounding the alarm, arguing that the traditional way Australia defines and measures poverty—focusing only on income—is no longer adequate. Sarah Quinton, the group’s campaign lead, explained, “Australia doesn’t have a child-centred definition of poverty or any way of measuring the well-being of children living in income poverty. If we don’t define or measure child poverty, how can we reduce it?” Their push is for a broader, more holistic approach, one that takes into account not just income, but also access to housing, education, health, and social inclusion. The aim is clear: to ensure that children aren’t left isolated at a time when they should be building connections and skills for the future.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Maine, the housing crisis is playing out in a different but equally dramatic way. For restaurant owners like Malcolm Bedell, dreams of expanding his business have been put on ice. Bedell opened Honey’s Fried Chicken Palace in Thomaston in 2024, hoping to build a chain across the state. But as he bluntly asked, “Who’s going to run it?” The answer, it turns out, is not so simple. The lack of affordable housing is making it nearly impossible to find and keep staff.
Quincy Hentzel, CEO of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, captured the scale of the problem: “Every single industry sector is being impacted by the lack of housing. Almost every business is finding a shortage or a difficulty in finding employees.” Small business owners are caught in a bind—they can’t afford to pay wages high enough to match the soaring cost of rent, and even when they can, there’s often nowhere for employees to live. The result? Some restaurants are forced to cut hours or close on slow days, while others, like Bedell’s Ancho Honey, have shut down for good.
The numbers back up these stories. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median housing cost for renters in Maine rose from $870 per month in 2019 to $1,210 per month in 2024. In Portland, the jump was even steeper, from $1,245 to $1,711 per month. Mike Fraser, a veteran of the restaurant industry who recently closed the Paper Tiger in Portland, said, “Not being able to operate a business where employees feel like they are appropriately compensated, enough so that they can live where they want to live and have the lifestyle they want to live, is the majority reason why.”
For workers, the struggle is personal and immediate. Ian King, a longtime service industry employee, described how housing costs pushed him and his wife to move out of Portland to South Portland in 2021, where they found a two-bedroom for $1,400 a month. “Most of the people I know back of house have roommates or live with their partners,” King said. “I don’t know anyone living alone unless they’re a chef.” The constant churn—restaurants closing, staff scrambling for new jobs, and the never-ending search for affordable places to live—has become the new normal.
The pandemic only made things worse. Employment in Maine’s hospitality industry plummeted in 2020 and only returned to pre-pandemic levels by summer 2023. Yet, as the number of restaurants rebounded, the labor pool did not. “Anytime you need an icebreaker question, it’s just like, ‘Well, where did all the staff go?’” Bedell remarked, noting that many left traditional work during COVID and simply haven’t come back.
And it’s not just a problem for restaurants. Patrick Woodcock, President of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, declared at the launch of a new pro-housing campaign this November, “Housing is not a housing issue anymore. It is an economic issue.” The Build Homes, Build Community coalition, formed by the Chamber along with other organizations, is working to educate communities on the need for more housing. Their message is urgent: Maine’s economic forecast is troubling, with employment growth dropping from 1 percent in 2024 to just 0.01 percent projected for 2026. Leisure and hospitality jobs, which made up about 10 percent of Maine jobs in 2025, are expected to stagnate and then decline through 2029.
Policy experts like James Myall from the Maine Center for Economic Policy suggest that while building more housing is the long-term fix, short-term solutions are also needed. Raising the minimum wage, as Portland recently did, and supporting eviction prevention programs could help ease the pressure. Myall noted, “Some of those programs that help people pay rent can be useful, especially if they’re particularly targeted at groups that might be especially vulnerable,” such as low-income workers in tourist areas.
Yet, new housing projects often face community opposition, with residents worried about the impact on the character of their neighborhoods. Woodcock countered this by stressing, “The collective benefits of all of us saying yes to housing swamps all of the concerns that we hear.” Without more housing, he warned, “We simply cannot grow if we have people moving away and [are] not attracting people into our workforce.”
In both Australia and Maine, the message from experts, business owners, and advocates is clear: the housing crisis is no longer just about shelter. It’s about the future of children, the survival of small businesses, and the health of entire communities. As rents rise and wages struggle to keep up, the question isn’t just who can afford to live where they want—it’s whether entire generations will be able to thrive at all.
For now, families and business owners are left to navigate a landscape where housing costs dictate nearly every aspect of life, hoping that meaningful change will come before more are forced to leave, close, or slip into poverty.
