MERRY CHRISTMAS SCUMBAG

By Garry Mallard, for the Rimfire Review

During the National Tenant Support Network’s 17 years of operation, I have successfully resisted the urge to use its reach to express personal outrage. That is about to change….oh, how it is about to change!
Upon returning from a brief trip to Sydney last Friday, I found in my letterbox, the Housing NSW Christmas greeting for 2012, attached for your information. It takes the form of an A4 sheet of paper bearing the Family & Community Services – Housing NSW logo, beneath which there appears a short message in blue, red and green; the traditional colours of Christmas.

THE FESTIVE SEASON MESSAGE FROM HOUSING NSW

By Ross Smith, for the Rimfire Review

The regular reminder that Christmas is imminent for NSW’s Public Housing tenants has arrived in their letterboxes as per ordained schedule, courtesy of their landlord. It takes the now standard form of dire threats of eviction if the rent is not paid on time and solicits payments in advance of the legislated timeframe.
This year Housing NSW has added a new tone to the Christmas message.

United we stand

There are many many comments on this blog about "banding together" and fighting "class actions".

Great ideas but as we all know, the time it takes to implement such processes and run them consistently with dedication, is often a burden upon one or two people.

To help spread the load and to address different concerns in the different states, three groups have set up on Facebook:

Friends of Public Housing Victoria

Friends of Public Housing NSW

Friends of Public Housing Queensland

Support them and learn from them and together we can attempt to change Public Housing in Australia.

Queensland - Call to Arms

Further to our story Something smelly in Queensland  the case is going to court

From Helen Wedlake:
In a test case to reverse a common practice of putting the tenant at fault in disputes concerning the condition of housing, there is a Court Hearing on 29th March, 2012, in Court of Appeal, Supreme Court George Street Brisbane pertaining to the Matter of Underwood v Dept. of Communities. It is in the public interest and a matter of belief that all Landlords whether private or public have a duty of care towards their tenants. The premise for an Appeal to the Supreme Court relates to judgment in QCAT tenancy tribunal that did not consider that a structurally defective unit subjected to repeated inflows of storm-water mixed with raw sewerage should have an abatement of rent.

Case Study: Something smelly in Queensland

This is an Open Letter sent to OHS and reprinted with permission.

I am ... taking this opportunity to share with you Helen Underwood's circumstances and Helen's
sustained fight for answers to her placements in housing that was unfit or barely fit for habitation, conditions by no means an exception in the system.

Evictions increase under 3-strikes

Further to our story last year about the WA policy of evictions...

This story appeared in the The West online newspaper

The Department of Housing has almost doubled the number of evictions of public housing tenants under its three-strikes policy in the past 13 months.

An explosion at a clandestine drug laboratory in a suburban home in March prompted Housing Minister Troy Buswell to harden the rules.

Just a little dash of common sense will fix it...

A few facts...

Only a very small percentage of Public Housing dwellings are 1 bedroom units.
Consequently, there is a HUGE percentage of 2 bedroom dwellings being occupied by single people.

Fact 2: It is NOT EASY to find a swap. Even with the super efficient Our House Swap website it can still be hard to find something that suits your needs.

Fact 3: It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get a transfer through the official channels - the average wait being 2 years.

HNSW breaches tenant's privacy

How broken is the official Housing NSW Mutual Exchange system?

It's hard to tell because it's virtually impossible to get a straight answer from HNSW.

Apart from having to wait nearly two years to get a response, the official Mutual Exchange system requires the tenant to forgo all privacy in order to participate in the program.

Draconian!!

Revealing preliminary results from tenant survey

MORE than 72 per cent of public tenants currently affected by anti- social behaviour have not had their problem resolved or addressed appropriately by State housing departments, according to the OHSBlog survey.

A massive 65 per cent found Housing staff to be "unhelpful and disinterested", and most had been putting up with noisy neighbours for more than two years.

Anti-social behaviour, maintenance and mutual exchange are three of the bigger issues affecting tenants in public housing across Australia. As each sector of Housing is run by the State government, tenants in each state experience a different level of ineptitude from their "landlord".

Indigenous housing group backs eviction laws

From ABC
The Goldfields Indigenous Housing Organisation has welcomed new legislation proposed by the Western Australian Government to address unsuitable behaviour in public housing.

The legislation would allow the Department of Housing to call on the magistrates court to evict disruptive tenants.

Goldfields Indigenous Housing Organisation CEO Julia Shadlow-Bath says the new laws will give authorities more power to deal with troublesome tenants.

"We can issue you with breach notices and those breach notices could escalate to the point of an eviction notice," she said.

Evictions of HomesWest tenants rises

From ABC News

The Department for Housing has evicted more than 150 people in the past six months as part of a crackdown on tenant eligibility.

In 2009, the State Government announced a review of the eligibility criteria for state housing tenants, to ensure they did not exceed income cut offs.

A total of 153 people have been forced to leave since November last year,

The Housing Minister Troy Buswell says changes announced last month to crackdown on anti-social tenants are also likely to lead to more people being evicted.

Another landmark ruling to help control the Ferals

From Domain.com.au

Come in and feel the noise: landlords to pay for rowdy tenants

Photocopies stickytaped to city lamp posts offering dirt-cheap, shared-room rentals in luxury apartments could soon be a thing of the past after a landmark court ruling.

Previously, landlords who crammed partying backpackers and students into houses and apartments could ignore complaints about noise, passing them back to tenants who changed so often no one could be held responsible. But in a game-changing move, a noise-abatement order has been served on the owners, rather than their tenants, of a Double Bay apartment. The downstairs neighbours had complained for years of noise and disturbance.

WA: Unruly tenants to face tougher rules

ABC News - Tuesday, 05 April, 2011

The state government is to toughen up its three strikes public housing policy.

Under the policy introduced in 2009, Homeswest tenants could be evicted if they were involved in criminal or disruptive behaviour on three occasions.

The Housing Minister Troy Buswell says under the new rules, there will be three categories of anti-social behaviour.

He has told the ABC the most serious breaches, which will include the manufacture of drugs and behaviour leading to restraining orders, will result in legal action to evict the tenant.

How to make Housing accountable - the Basics

I have had many requests from other victims of anti-social neighbours to produce a "how to" guide... so here it is:

How to put Housing on notice that you are not going to take this anymore!

Firstly - print out this statement in large letters and stick it on your fridge; say it to yourself every morning and repeat it to every Housing staff member you encounter:

I have a RIGHT to quiet enjoyment of my property.

The Landlord must take all reasonable steps TO ENSURE that my other neighbouring tenants do not interfere with my reasonable peace, comfort or privacy.

Tenant SUES Housing NSW - and WINS!!!

Last August we reported on a tenant who was taking HNSW to the CTTT for their failure to deal appropriately with her anti-social neighbour.

We are pleased to announce that SHE WON !!!

It took 7 months to go through 3 court hearings - the only defence offered by Housing was a handful of fabricated incident reports with incorrect dates and fictitious events. With over 100 pages of evidence against the noisy neighbour, none of which had been acted upon in two years, Housing's position was indefensible.

Keeping up with the FERALS

Further to our story about where all the money goes... the DoH tenant who trashed her 2 bedroom house and was rewarded by HNSW with a nice new 4 bedroom property, left this mess and a ~$5000 damage bill for Housing to take care of.

The rotting putrid pile in the backyard

The patio

The kitchen which was only one year old

The carpet which was new

The walls which were painted recently...

And now it is boarded up and uninhabitable

Where does all the money go?

From a HNSW tenant:
I've been waiting 13 months to get a downpipe fixed. Simple job. It's been assessed by the Assets Team but they say they "have no money". They haven't had any money for 13 months. Every month it's the same excuse. Now, because of the leaking downpipe, the window has rotted. Now they have to find the money for the downpipe AND the window. It took about 3 months for the benchtops to become swollen - because the window leaked - because the downpipe was broken. You get the picture...

Recently my neighbour moved out. The best word to describe my neighbour was "feral". She lived like a pig, she acted like a pig. She left the yard like this:

 

The ultimate LIMP FISH response.

"... creating harmonious communities..."

Sounds nice, doesn't it.

Should be fairly easy to achieve. Putting like minded people together creates harmony - strengthens a community.

It's the concept behind the Over 55's units. It’s the strategy used with various ethnic groups: language, customs, support and culture… tenants are much happier where they feel they “belong”.

The opposite is the recipe for disaster. For example, allocating a unit to a transgender lady in a block where a known violent homophobe resides would just be asking for trouble. Putting a young, uneducated mother with a brood of unruly children in the middle of an elderly estate would be inviting failure.

So asking HNSW to uphold their own policy and allocate to "create a harmonious community" should elicit a positive response and beneficial outcome for all.

I have personally witnessed two occasions where HNSW have “hand-picked” tenants to ensure that harmony is maintained. It was so successful that the Minister used it in a press release as an example of “good design” in tenant allocation, and  “creating prosperous communities”.

Good tenants forced to vacate for Christmas

Good tenants are being forced to leave their homes this Christmas and move into anonymous motels because Housing NSW won’t act to control bad neighbours.

Mrs T left her unit this morning and is now living in a cheap motel. “I couldn’t afford to stay in a motel in my own neighbourhood with my friends” said Mrs T, “It’s going to be a very lonely Christmas for me”.

Mrs T’s neighbours have a long history of anti-social behaviour but their violence has increased since school holidays started.

All talk - No action. Kristina Keneally comes to Waterloo

Last Friday I attended yet another Housing Forum - where the same old people trotted out the same old rhetoric.
The only difference was the Premier of NSW regurgitated it and spat it in our faces.

Here is my response to her:

Dear Ms Keneally,

I was disappointed but not surprised by your "housing forum" display in Waterloo last Friday.