Melbourne’s rising rents and a lack of new properties coming up for lease are leaving Melburnians with few options and putting further pressure on public housing services.

In the year to March 2018, rents in suburbs that were once considered affordable have increased by up to 18 per cent, while the number of properties available in the least expensive suburbs was as low as 10, according to Domain Group data.

Unit prices in Wyndham Vale, Tarneit, Bacchus Marsh and Gisborne have increased by at least 10 per cent in the past year to $320, $340, $290 and $360 per week respectively. Each suburb had fewer than 41 units available for rent.

Over the past decade rents have increased by 76 per cent but wages have only seen 37 per cent growth, according to census data.

Suburbs with the highest rent increases included Braybrook, Williamstown and Altona North, where weekly unit rents increased by more than 18 per cent to $390, $398 and $380 respectively.

House rents in Kew East and Parkville increased by more than 19 per cent to $740 and $695.

Melbourne’s lowest-priced rental houses were in Melton ($300), Yarra Junction ($320) and Warburton ($320), and the highest-priced houses were in Toorak ($1100) Brighton ($975) and Canterbury ($888).

Demand for rental properties had substantially grown in line with Melbourne’s population increases, growth faster than any other Australian capital, Devon LaSalle from Tenants Victoria said.

“In that lower rent bracket, there’s a lot of competition out there,” Ms LaSalle said. “There are more renters in Victoria than ever before – about a third of the population now rent their homes.”

Units in Campbellfield, near Broadmeadows, had the lowest median weekly rent of all suburbs in the metro area – $250.

That’s roughly 78 per cent of what someone on Newstart payments and rent assistance would receive per fortnight, YWCA chief executive Jan Berriman said.

“To make a community really hum, everybody shouldn’t be paying more 30 per cent of their income on their housing costs,” Ms Berriman said.

The YWCA provides affordable housing for women in need at 25 per cent of their income, but Ms Berriman said so far this year they have only been able to accept 23 of the 141 women who have applied for housing with the organisation.

Marriage breakdowns, lower-paying jobs, caring duties and a lack of superannuation were all reasons women, and particularly older women, found themselves in the private rental market or relying on social services, she said.

“A lot of the women who are now applying for our housing have never, ever been in the social sector – they’ve never been on Centrelink they’ve never had to apply for welfare, many didn’t know that there’s a service system here.”

For 61-year-old Frieda Johnson, homelessness was something she never thought would ever happen to her.

“I was living off of the sniff of an oily rag,” Ms Johnson said. “I was at my wit’s end, I couldn’t cope any more.”

She lived in a share house in Reservoir for four years after divorcing her husband of 32 years.

Her housemate went bankrupt, and Ms Johnson was left responsible for $2000 in unpaid rent. Her casual job as a home-support worker for the elderly did not pay enough to cover what was owed, and she ended up couch surfing for three months.

“Three months I will never forget,” she said. “It was really horrible.”

Ms Johnson has been living at the YWCA since March, and said though she had recently applied for disability support from the government, she did not think she would be able to get back into the private rental market.

“I’m struggling to pay YWCA – I don’t have a lot of money to play with for a fortnight,” Ms Johnson said.

Ms Berriman said an increased supply of affordable private rental housing as well as public housing – about 20,000 properties per year – was necessary to keep up with demand.

“There’s currently close to 40,000 people on the waitlist for public housing – that’s without everybody who is in the market who are struggling and all those kids who are still at home with their parents at 30,” Ms Berriman said.