How Ilse’s rent went from $240 to $620

SYDNEY’S rental crisis has forced Ilse Huber, 83, who fled the Holocaust, into a terrible countdown. What will end first, her life savings or her life?

Mrs Huber was forced out of the Elizabeth Bay unit she had lived in for 39 years after the building’s owner sold it to a developer. She was given four weeks’ notice to leave.

But soon after leaving her $240 a week one-bedroom flat, with all the ageing 24-unit block’s other residents, the widow learned the new owner was leasing the units out - at higher rents. read more