Social housing tenants met last week in Glebe to discuss the mounting maintenance orders which have yet to be resolved despite years of complaints to Housing NSW.
Attendees at the Old Fire Station meeting on Tuesday, May 15 were exasperated by their individual attempts to gain the department’s attention.
The long list of complaints ranged from cleaning out dirt-packed gutters to repairing kitchen cabinets and
broken fences.
The event’s host, Julie Brackenreg, is the Glebe Minister for community aid group Hope Street.
She urged tenants to band together by recording their numerous calls to the department and sending in a coordinated stack of forms to the NSW Consumer, Trader & Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT).
She said Housing NSW needed to take responsibility as the landlord for social housing properties in Glebe and accused the department of “dereliction by neglect”. “Some have been told to hire a private contractor.”
Others have also been told to clean out their own gutters or that Housing NSW does not provide this service.
After gathering quotes from private workers, Ms Brackenreg said the lowest call-out fee was $70.
“To clean the gutters, it was more like $250, depending on the length.”
Many of the 22 residents were pensioners and elderly, some requiring assistance with mobility.
Ms Brackenreg acknowledged that some tenants could not physically attend the meeting because of disabilities and encouraged attendees to keep them involved.
Her own home has eaves troughs which she claimed were compacted with one foot of silt and two feet of compressed leaves and twigs.
Member for Balmain, Jamie Parker was also there to show support.
“I have collected a dossier of social housing complaints.”
“If the gutters are not fixed, there are water problems which lead to damaged walls that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
He said the poor management was because of Housing NSW’s split nature, namely the Department of Family and Community Services helmed by Minister Pru Goward and the Department of Finance and Services headed by Minister Greg Pearce.
Both halves of Housing NSW are responsible for public housing yet coordination seems to be lacking.
Minister for Finance and Services, Greg Pearce said: “The previous NSW Labor Government failed to effectively manage social housing across the state.”
“Getting the maintenance backlog down is a priority for the Government and a task we know will take time to turn around after 16 years of neglect under NSW Labor.”
One frustrated resident said: “I didn’t realise there are so many people with the same problem.
If they aren’t going to look after my place, why should I?” A Mitchell St resident, Sue Barker said she called in an order to repair her kitchen cupboard doors and drawers.
“I was told,‘You’re in a three-year plan for repairs.’”
When asked specifically about the complaint orders in Glebe, a spokesperson for Minister Pru Goward said: “Housing NSW has nothing to add to Minister Pearce’s statement.”
By Deborah Erwin
