By Helen Cunningham
MELBOURNE — One of the better features of the current public housing system is the human face provided by tenant support workers and public housing officers. Changes proposed by the Kennett government to public housing could radically alter the way the system works.
The government's philosophy is that people aren't as important as the money that can be saved if departments are stricter, meaner and more distant. The Department of Planning and Development, which is responsible for public housing, has proposed a five-point plan to scale down operations and tighten tenants' belts:
- <~>Higher rents — Rents will increase from the current 20% of a person's income to 23%.
- <~>Harsher and stricter measures against people in arrears on their rent — Tenants in arrears will have two weeks to make up the difference or face eviction.
This ignores the fact that people on low income have few options if a major catastrophe happens. Health difficulties, accidents, school fees, children's emergency needs can cause a sudden shortfall.
Tenant support worker Steve Dobson describes one instance of bureaucratic absurdity in which an elderly tenant was facing legal action because she was 80 cents in arrears! Often, when a tenant's income falls and is being assessed for a rent adjustment, rent appears to be in arrears but in fact has been paid.
Many of the occupants of public housing have already had it tough. They are refugees, new migrants, invalids, victims of family violence, or previously homeless. These people already on the edge will be placed under further stress.
- <~>Selling housing stock — The Age recently reported that 1000 public housing units had been sold in the last 18 months.
The government is recouping money locked into land ownership, by selling off highly prized land close to the city at a profit. If new tenants have to be housed in outlying suburbs where the land is cheaper, how will this affect their lifestyle?
How much harder will it be to utilise the support services that are closer to the city? What are the job prospects in outlying areas?
- <~>Reduced tenure — Previously tenants had a secure tenancy agreement, and they could remain in their flat/house indefinitely unless rent wasn't paid. Now tenants will be given only a three- or five-year lease. They may be asked to leave at the end of the lease if the authorities decide they are no longer sufficiently needy.
Tenants lucky enough to have a job which pays a decent wage will be forced back into uncertainty, fighting to survive in a private rental market with a low vacancy rate and ever-increasing rents.
- <~>Difficulty in acquiring tenancy — It already is difficult to access public housing. According to the new regulations, only those who are homeless, the elderly, people with disabilities and in extreme emergency, such as escaping domestic violence, will qualify. This excludes many low-income people who have been on the waiting lists for years.
The government will also sack all tenant support workers from September and contract this work to charitable service organisations like the Brotherhood of St Laurence or the Salvation Army.
Dobson says: "We should be building more public housing. Economic rationalists like [Victorian treasurer] Stockdale and Costello, are they interested in the ordinary people's suffering?
"There is a good argument economically for building more public housing. It injects more activity into the marketplace and boosts the economy. On the human side, people are homeless, people are living in atrocious conditions, there are 50,000 people on waiting lists."