I pay £700 a month to live in a TENT – I can’t afford to live anywhere else, it’s absolutely horrible
A SINGLE mum has revealed that she lives in a tent for £700 a month because she can't afford to live anywhere else.
Meagan, 36, from Adelaide, Australia, claims that she has been forced to live in the tent amid a housing crisis.
And the struggling woman, who receives disability benefits, says she's been paying $300 (£172) a week for just a piece of grass at the West Beach caravan park.
She decided to make the hard decision after around 40 private rental applications were knocked back over the past five weeks, reports
The single mother said: "I never ever thought I would be in this situation, it's been absolutely horrible.
"Everything keeps going up, how are people going to survive? The homelessness just gets worse and worse."
Meagan is now one of more than 16,000 on the Public Housing wait list and fears she's been lost in the Government system.
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South Australia's Human Services Minister Nat Cook says it was a problem they inherited when they came into office earlier this year.
She said: "In the first week of coming into office we had 1,500 emails."
Cook called Meghan personally today and offered hotel accommodation as a shot term solution
However, finding a permanent home could still take months.
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To make matters worse, South Australia's housing shortage crisis is being compounded by the rising cost of living.
The Government says one of the ways to help with that is a $1.8 million investment to extend the Fuel Price Transparency Scheme.
It something the RAA says is saving motorists an average of around $350 (£200) a year.
Mark Borlace of RAA told 9News;"If you've got two cars it's the largest energy bill you have in the house and to be able to save 600 bucks on an energy bill during the year is a really important part of budgeting today."