?I was squatting?: why asylum seekers so often struggle to find secure housing

It took Mariah* six months to find her first rental in western Sydney.

An asylum seeker from a west African nation, she arrived in Australia in 2018 and has been living in the community on a bridging visa ever since. Initially boarding with a family, she got a job and struck out with a friend, only to discover that the rental market wanted nothing to do with her.

"Every real estate agent we applied to said: ‘You are asylum seekers, you don't have a permanent residency, you don't have the documents that we are asking for,'" Mariah tells Guardian Australia. "And above all, we don't have anyone to reference or stand as witness for us."

The pair were only able to secure a rental property by responding to an ad on Facebook Marketplace - a granny flat more than 25km west of the Sydney CBD, for $700 a fortnight. Even that was fraught.

"Because it was between me and the family, it was difficult - they knew we were not permanent residents," Mariah says. "So every three months they ask for documents like your visa - ‘is your visa expired?' So we are under pressure."

Mariah's experience is not unique. Asylum seekers routinely experience housing insecurity, homelessness, chronic financial insecurity and the constantly looming threat of eviction from formal and informal tenancies, according to a new report from Jesuit Refugee Services and the University of Western Sydney.

The study, A Place to Call Home, involved conducting in-depth interviews with a small group of asylum seekers accessing support services in western Sydney, followed by a broader survey.