This week I am writing about the woeful performance of the ACT Greens/Labor government in sending letters to about 400 mainly elderly public housing tenants telling them they had to get out of their homes, many of which they had occupied for 30 or 40 years, to make way for more apartments. As a former housing minister in the ACT (1995-1998) and former Appeal President of ACAT (2009-2016), I find the treatment of these tenants arrogant and insensitive.
These tenants, like most housing tenants, are good tenants. They pay their rent on time, keep their homes well and are good neighbours (elderly tenants especially). These people have raised their families in these homes and have long been an integral and valuable part of their local community.
We often hear of a few bad tenants who the government seems to bend over backwards to help keep their homes so they can continue to annoy the neighbours and other good tenants who bash their head against a brick wall to get even basic maintenance done. I know some good people who work in housing and it must be soul destroying to see how ineffectual the department has become in recent times.
I recently spoke to an elderly tenant in Charnwood who had been in her house for close to 40 years. She had maintenance issues that had not been attended to for 20 years. Indeed, the last time she had problems fixed was in 1998 when I was minister. This is not an isolated occurrence.
As minister, I did oversee the relocation of some longstanding tenants to other premises – usually to aged persons units (APU) when their old home got too much for them to look after, and on occasions we would sell that old property as part of our ongoing upgrades program (often to build more APUs for our ageing tenant population) but the move was by consent. The tenants were not forced out of their homes. We would work around them and with them.
We also would relocate or evict tenants who made their neighbours’ lives hell. Often these tenants did not pay their rent, so this was in most cases a relatively easy process. It’s not rocket science.
In 1998, we had about 11,500 public housing properties, and were aiming to get 1,000 properties as dedicated community housing properties. When I last saw figures a few weeks ago for public housing properties, it was about the same and we have nowhere near 1,000 community properties. In the meantime, the ACT population has gone up about 50 per cent. No wonder we have an affordable housing problem in the ACT.
Still, that’s what you get when the Territory’s government never changes. Maybe Mr Barr can get Ms Berry (the current minister) and Mr Gentleman (who also seems to be struggling with his current portfolios) to swap portfolios for a change.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.
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