3 ms·

Public housing in Australia is vastly under-resourced. It's been deprived for resources for decades, and made only worse by self-serving decisions made by those

Public housing in Australia is vastly under-resourced. It's been deprived for resources for decades, and made only worse by self-serving decisions made by those in power. In NSW public housing land that was established a generation or two ago has been sold off to private developers. At most there's been lip service about some low percentage of "affordable housing" being made available in the new development, but often not enforced. The public housing stock is being depleted because of funding for repairs and renovations being cut short or eliminated entirely. There's a huge number of properties which are not able to be occupied because of roofs leaking, mould, and more. Meanwhile, private housing is getting more and more expensive in large part by investors buying up and renting out property for top dollar. As for a policy change: Let multiple problems solve each other. We have a shortage of skilled trades. We have unemployment issues. We have a whole lot of properties that need to be maintained and renovated. Lets employ skilled tradespeople to teach and train new generations using public housing as the training ground. Renovate, rebuild if necessary existing properties. Build new homes and communities.

Khaine 2y ago
Do you know why it's under resourced? My dad used to be a manager in public housing: 1) Government housing needs to accommodate disabled people so it costs a lot more to build. They outsource the building of it to contractors. They get screwed over by these contractors since no public servant has the guts to hold contractors to account 2) The Minister wants to support some noble thing a charity is doing in this space, so the Government give land/houses to charities to manage public housing. These charities are poor at managing it until they give up and sell it off. This reduces the public housing stock. 3) A small number of tenants do significant damage to their public house. They then have to get re-housed as the government is liable if they hurt themself due to an unsafe living environment (that they caused). This costs significant amounts to fix (which again is done by contractors who's crew the government over). 4) Anyone with a sob story (refugee, whatever) demands they need a house that has a bedroom for each member of their large family. If they are given a smaller house they complain to the minister until they get moved to a new larger house. This means that housing stock that was built in the past won't meet these demands and new larger houses are needed, again taking away money from being able to mass build cheap houses increasing housing stock to meet the demand of those who need housing. 5) People who can afford renting privately hide income to get cheap housing from the government. Public housing tenants who do need public housing do the same to basically avoid paying a reasonable rental amount. My grandparents had public housing. They treated it as their own home. They respected what had been given to them. Social housing as a concept is fucked because the social contract has been fucked. In my mind anyone who destroys or significantly damages public housing as a tenant should be banned from ever getting public housing.
- paranoidrobot 2y ago
  > Do you know why it's under resourced? Except for government getting ripped off by contractors, which extends far beyond the need for disability housing, the causes you give are minor issues. They're the issues that pop up on tabloid news sites and TV shows. The largest cause for it being under-resourced is because of decades of government cuts and freezes on spending. Properties are being damaged because the government is not funding repairs and maintenance. You can report something minor (say a window leaking), and it'll sit in a queue for a year or two before it gets looked at. Meanwhile the tenant tries to do a patch job themselves, but that really only slows things down - and the leak is now developing into a mould issue in the cupboards/wall. So now the entire kitchen needs to be replaced and your $150 repair job is now a $15k kitchen renovation job. This happens with other things like roof leaks, where the entire property is now a health hazard due to black mould everywhere, and the tenants having to be relocated. Meanwhile, the department does not have funds to acquire/build new property - so every loss of a property due to poor maintenance is that much more impactful. Combine that with our aging population and yeah - we're not even close to "It's the refugees with the massive family" being even close to a real cause.
  - Khaine 2y ago
    Yeah no. We are talking about a tenant, ripping the doors off the walls pulling up carpet, stealing and selling the toilet, white goods, cabinets. The destruction and damage being so complete it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair, and this is not a one off occurance. These small minority of tenants impose significant costs on public housing, which then means the government doesn't have the funding to build more houses. A lack of minor maintenance as you describe is due to shoddy contractors ripping off the government, doing a sub-standard job. They are responsible for doing that maintenance, and cut costs by avoiding call-outs until its significant and then do a half arsed job fixing it.
globalnode 2y ago
Id sign up and learn a trade for that.

Khaine 2y ago

Do you know why it's under resourced? My dad used to be a manager in public housing: 1) Government housing needs to accommodate disabled people so it costs a lot more to build. They outsource the building of it to contractors. They get screwed over by these contractors since no public servant has the guts to hold contractors to account 2) The Minister wants to support some noble thing a charity is doing in this space, so the Government give land/houses to charities to manage public housing. These charities are poor at managing it until they give up and sell it off. This reduces the public housing stock. 3) A small number of tenants do significant damage to their public house. They then have to get re-housed as the government is liable if they hurt themself due to an unsafe living environment (that they caused). This costs significant amounts to fix (which again is done by contractors who's crew the government over). 4) Anyone with a sob story (refugee, whatever) demands they need a house that has a bedroom for each member of their large family. If they are given a smaller house they complain to the minister until they get moved to a new larger house. This means that housing stock that was built in the past won't meet these demands and new larger houses are needed, again taking away money from being able to mass build cheap houses increasing housing stock to meet the demand of those who need housing. 5) People who can afford renting privately hide income to get cheap housing from the government. Public housing tenants who do need public housing do the same to basically avoid paying a reasonable rental amount. My grandparents had public housing. They treated it as their own home. They respected what had been given to them. Social housing as a concept is fucked because the social contract has been fucked. In my mind anyone who destroys or significantly damages public housing as a tenant should be banned from ever getting public housing.

paranoidrobot 2y ago
> Do you know why it's under resourced? Except for government getting ripped off by contractors, which extends far beyond the need for disability housing, the causes you give are minor issues. They're the issues that pop up on tabloid news sites and TV shows. The largest cause for it being under-resourced is because of decades of government cuts and freezes on spending. Properties are being damaged because the government is not funding repairs and maintenance. You can report something minor (say a window leaking), and it'll sit in a queue for a year or two before it gets looked at. Meanwhile the tenant tries to do a patch job themselves, but that really only slows things down - and the leak is now developing into a mould issue in the cupboards/wall. So now the entire kitchen needs to be replaced and your $150 repair job is now a $15k kitchen renovation job. This happens with other things like roof leaks, where the entire property is now a health hazard due to black mould everywhere, and the tenants having to be relocated. Meanwhile, the department does not have funds to acquire/build new property - so every loss of a property due to poor maintenance is that much more impactful. Combine that with our aging population and yeah - we're not even close to "It's the refugees with the massive family" being even close to a real cause.
- Khaine 2y ago
  Yeah no. We are talking about a tenant, ripping the doors off the walls pulling up carpet, stealing and selling the toilet, white goods, cabinets. The destruction and damage being so complete it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair, and this is not a one off occurance. These small minority of tenants impose significant costs on public housing, which then means the government doesn't have the funding to build more houses. A lack of minor maintenance as you describe is due to shoddy contractors ripping off the government, doing a sub-standard job. They are responsible for doing that maintenance, and cut costs by avoiding call-outs until its significant and then do a half arsed job fixing it.

globalnode 2y ago

Id sign up and learn a trade for that.