Public housing tenant Jacqui Kennedy knew she needed to take matters into her own hands when she wanted to move from Thirroul to Sydney ten years ago.
Ms Kennedy set up the website Our House Swap after she was fed up with Housing NSW who had sent her “an old and decrepit letter” eight months after she had lodged her request to move.
“I got back a letter that was kind of funny because the phone number [on it] was a five digit number when everyone else was using six digit phone numbers,” she said.
“It was the only letter I ever got.”
Ms Kennedy’s experience is not unique. The process of mutual exchange and moving homes can be a long and frustrating one for many public
housing tenants.
“I had a guy in my building and he waited 10 years to move,” said City of Sydney Councillor Irene Doutney, who is a public housing tenant herself.
“He was probably very specific about what he wanted…but 10 years that’s ridiculous.”
Our House Swap is a website that aims to combat this problem. The free service allows tenants to post their houses online for others to see
and browse homes in the area they wish to move to.
Ms Kennedy said she has had over 17, 000 listings since setting up Our House Swap in 2001.
“I probably get 20 emails a month saying you can take my ad down I’ve now swapped [houses].”
Councillor Doutney said: “Transfer through the department can take forever and ever and this [website] seems to get people
moving really quickly.”
But Housing NSW will not officially support Our House Swap and has refused to provide a link to the site on its own webpage.
“It would be inappropriate for Housing NSW to endorse or promote private or commercial organisations,” said a Housing NSW representative.
But the representative said: “Housing NSW is happy for tenants to seek opportunities for housing swap through their own efforts.”
Co-ordinator for the Tenant Support Network and former Board member for National Shelter, Garry Mallard OAM, said: “It’s a very complex
issue. I can see both sides to the story.”
He said the delays in organising public housing swaps came down to the amount of homes available.
“Tenants don’t see the big picture in terms of stock allocations.
“If somebody wanted to transfer from a four bedroom in Smithfield to a two bedroom in Bega, if there’s a lot of stock it’s not a problem but if you’re struggling to find homes of adequate size and configurations to a growing target group that becomes a lot harder.”
Mr Mallard said the reason why Housing NSW couldn’t support the website was because “they can’t control it and Government is very sensitive of criticisms of ministers.”
But Ms Kennedy doesn’t believe this is a reasonable justification.
“Housing is bogged down in their own policy and red tape,” she said.
“To them we’re just numbers to shuffle around on a piece of paper, we’re not people.”
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