In Australia’s towns and cities, people are in rental stress. Families, professionals, essential workers, students – millions of people – being forced from the hearts of our urban centres, denied a chance at community, and increasingly held back from living ‘sustainable’ lifestyles, let alone ‘getting on the housing ladder’. So – what are we going to do?
This satirical, solutions-led impact documentary spends time with everyday Australians in the cities, suburbs and regions who all have one thing in common – they rent! Unable to access what we’ve been told is the ‘Australian dream,’ they make up a third of households in Australian, are a growing cohort, and are a key to a sense of community. In its hybridized, comedy meets documentary style, THE RENTERS asks how we got into this situation, while asking which of the many solutions at our fingertips are going to help Australia make a dent in its housing crisis in the timeframe we need them to.
With an associated impact campaign with a sizeable and growing list of partners all highlighting solutions to one of the wicked problems of our time, The Renters aims to entertain, inform and activate.
In 2023 we began made a pilot; now we’re flipping the script, taking the feedback and writing the best possible show we can for our streaming partner and impact friends to release in 2025.
With a team of award-winning journalists, doco makers, comedians and, ahem, *renters* behind it (Mark Humphries and Evan Williams (ABC, SBS), Bill Code (Al Jazeera, The Guardian), Craig Reucassel (War on Waste, The Chaser) Ange McCormack (The Monthly, JJJ), Justine Moyle (Tall Poppy), The Renters will either make you laugh, cry, or demand change. It might make you do all three!