'Dramatic worsening' in ACT rental options for low-income earners

He finds a seat on a milk crate and his dog Rocky sits down nearby.

Mr Roncali is calm for someone who has almost no cash and three weeks to find a new home in Canberra's daunting rental market.

He needs to vacate his home of eight years after a shoulder injury stopped him from paying rent with income made maintaining the property.

"This situation has only come up in the last two weeks, so you don't get much time to think about it or dwell on it," he says.

"You just deal with the cards as they fall."

As the deadline nears, he grows more anxious. A hardship payment hasn't arrived, and years living on a low income have denied him savings.

He doesn't know how he'll pay bills around the corner.

Mr Roncali could face a long wait for social housing.

There are more than 2000 applications, and waiting times range from 190 days for priority housing to three years for the standard category.

But he remains stoic.

"At the end of the day, I can always go and sleep in my car," he says.

Canberra, the nation's most expensive capital city to rent a house and the second most costly to rent an apartment, is shutting Mr Roncali out of the private market.

Anglicare says its annual housing snapshot, released on Monday, showed a drastic fall in Canberra's affordable rentals, despite the ACT's building boom and strong housing growth.

Every year the leading support agency tests if it is possible for people on low incomes to rent a home in the private market by taking a snapshot of thousands of properties listed for rent on realestate.com.au during a weekend in March or April.

For most low-income earners, rent causes financial stress and hardship if it is more than 30 per cent of a household budget.

Housing affordability in the ACT has continued its "disastrous" long-term decline, putting still more Canberra families under rental stress, Anglicare says.

A single person on parenting support with one child under five has no rental options in Canberra and is priced completely out of the market, Anglicare has found in its annual snapshot.

Singles on the Newstart allowance are also left with nowhere affordable to rent, as are singles in a share house, a single person on a minimum wage and receiving a family tax, and singles over 21 years on disability support pensions.

Anglicare found that, of 14 household types receiving welfare support, 10 of them have no affordable properties available for rent.

Mr Roncali estimates he's earned about $28,000 a year since 2011, and says he hasn't had a pay rise in that time, while costs have grown.

The median weekly asking rent for units in Canberra is $465. For houses, it's $570.

Mr Roncali says he can't afford hundreds of dollars in weekly rent without draining his compensation lump sum, which is meant to pay for expensive shoulder surgery.

Anglicare chief executive Jeremy Halcrow said this year's snapshot showed a "dramatic worsening" in the number of Canberra's affordable rentals, despite the territory's comparative wealth, the building boom and strong housing growth.

"Serious housing reforms are needed," Mr Halcrow said.

"Pushing families out to locations without adequate access to public transport and community support is not an adequate solution."

In 2016 there were 81 properties affordable for a family reliant on the minimum wage in the territory, which was 6 per cent of available properties. This year there were just 17 properties affordable for minimum wage families, or just 1 percent of the properties advertised.

Anglicare executive director Kasy Chambers said governments were walking away from social housing, forcing more people "to fend for themselves in a market that is out of control".

"This is a wake-up call," she said.

"What this snapshot shows is that finding an affordable home in the private rental market is a complete fiction for people on low incomes. The minimum wage has not kept pace with the rising cost of living, which is a failure of both the government and the market."

For far too many people "paying the rent means they can't afford to eat decent food, fill a prescription, pay for transport, or buy clothes", the report said.

"As government has abandoned social housing, more of these people have been languishing on waiting lists, forced to compete for rentals in the private market."

Mr Roncali thinks of himself as more fortunate than others, who may not have the help of a compensation payment.

"Probably families are doing it a lot harder than me. It would be a lot harder if you were trying to move a family if someone lost a job."

He wants stable housing so he can find steady work and stay independent.

"When you get to my age, you need someplace to call your home, somewhere to rest your head and have a roof over you."

Mr Roncali would like to see waiting lists drop for social housing.

"Then it would give you some hope."

The wind doesn't relent on Lake Burley Griffin, and Rocky saunters over for some attention. That's enough, he's saying after a patient wait.

His owner will learn more when he applies for housing. A lot hangs on his hardship payment coming through. Until then, he doesn't know what he'll do.

Mr Roncali describes seeing a homeless man in Commonwealth Park when he walks Rocky.

He plans to give the man a warm jacket next Christmas.

"I think [to myself], 'you are one pay cheque from being there yourself'."