GREETINGS FROM UTAH

SOUNDS LIKE PUBLIC HOUSING TO ME

   

Keeping abreast of what's happening in housing around the world – Utah.

Have you heard of Sam Tsemberis ? – He knows how to solve homelessness.

Here's what has been said about him.

He has been hailed as a truly great innovative thinker, and has been compared to Thomas Edison.

'He doesn’t at first seem like an innovator who has had national impact. But few thinkers today are in greater demand. The process of innovation is often one of mystery. Where does an idea come from? How do innovators find it? What makes them different from everyone else fumbling around in the dark?'

'Sam Tsemberis has unfurled a model so simple children could grasp it, so cost-effective fiscal hawks loved it, so socially progressive liberals praised it.'

And what did Sam do to warrant all this hyperbole?

How did he solve homelessness?  He simply housed people. That's how.

'It’s that simple', he said. 'Give homes for the homeless, and you will solve chronic homelessness.' People have found his approach 'totally off the walls radical'. They can't stop talking about it. 

Yep, he just houses people, no questions asked.

What's more, Sam's solution has also saved the state of Utah and New York City truckloads of money. They are more than happy with Sam's radical approach.

'We committed,' said Utah’s Gordon Walker, explaining how his state succeeded at eliminating homelessness — and saved millions. 'It was costing us in state services, health-care costs, jail time, police time, about $20,000 per person. Now, we spend $12,000 per person.'

New York was also spending a staggering annual $40,500 on every homeless person with mental health issues. Sam Tsemberis' approach is inspiring policies across the United States. 
 

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Here in Australia we already have a housing model that houses people according to need and without judgement, a housing model based on compassion and social inclusion.

Its called PUBLIC HOUSING and it's a cost effective, human-rights based model that works very well - if only the politicians would come to their senses and embrace it fully, instead of starving it of funds and flogging it off to be converted into other housing models which will in fact increase homelessness and cost the taxpayer so much more. 

It would seem that once public housing is gone, time passes and people completely forget that such a sensible housing model ever existed.

And it takes people like Sam Tsemberis, an outsider, to come along and show people how it's done.

It's not rocket science. It's common sense.

Good on ya Sam. You've certainly got our vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/06/meet-the-outsider-who-accidentally-solved-chronic-homelessness/

PROPERTY CLEARANCES

Did you know that in the financial year of 2012/13 the Victorian Liberal Coalition government tried to vacate 5,478 public housing properties by applying for thousands of  eviction notices to be sent to the occupants? Only 304 of these proposed evictions were approved by VCAT.

Lets look at the article in question. See link below.

As stated by the CEO of the Tenants Union – eviction from public housing often results in homelessness. Public housing is the last stop. But unfortunately there is no subsequent condemnation of this action against public tenants by the state government from the Tenants Union.

And who are the mysterious, unidentified 'public housing advocates' - sometimes quoted in newspaper articles - who invariably echo government housing policy and attempt to justify such actions against public tenants?

We know that the focus of these eviction notices was on rental arrears.

It would be interesting to know how much arrears needed to occur before the department applied for Notices to Vacate. What measures, if any, were taken to resolve outstanding rental arrears before deciding on this course of action ?

Instead of addressing these issues, the article goes off on a different tangent - bringing up hackneyed stories of the Big Bad Anti-Social Public Tenant. Two examples are given which include drug deals, sawn off shotguns, steel bars, and even the hurling of eggs ..

But these thousands of intended evictions were not about antisocial behaviour – the matter at hand was overwhelmingly rental arrears. To raise lurid examples of 'antisocial behaviour' only serves to further stigmatise and misrepresent public tenants which is very unfair.

The real story here is of an unconscionable attempt by the government of the day to clear properties which would result in homelessness for individuals and families. The question to ask is what was the government's real agenda in doing this?  The article says that the government's objective was to reclaim the properties. 
 

THE LANGUAGE OF EVICTIONS

The CEO of the Tenants Union refers to tenants being 'booted' out of public housing.

Public tenant evictions are often described by media in this way. Apparently we don't get evicted like other people - with all the trauma that evictions and impending homelessness brings – including the trauma to families and children. No. All too often we read of public tenants being kicked out, thrown out, turfed out, chucked out, and booted out of their public housing homes.  Into homelessness ...

In spite of my criticism regarding the bias demonstrated in this article - at least the Herald Sun reported this important information. I have found no reference to the applications made by the previous Victorian government to vacate 5,478 households in any other mainstream newspaper … 

Public tenants are a group very much at risk of homelessness, and an example like this one, of an attempt to evict en masse thousands of public tenants, in the course of a year, should be more widely known.

Thankfully the Victorian Civil Administration Tribunal - VCAT - threw out the vast majority of these applications.

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The children in this photo belong to the close-knit public housing community where I live.

They'd been playing a lively game of soccer.

Sources

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/government-threatens-to-evict-thousands-in-housing-crackdown/story-fni0fit3-1226752997778

STANDING IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS PUBLIC TENANTS

The UNCLE JACK CHARLES AWARD is an award that recognises outstanding achievement by an indigenous artist. As an exception to the usual practice, Jack Charles also awarded it to Friends of Public Housing Victoria for our voice of opposition regarding the controversial 'Three Strikes Eviction Policy' which applies to public housing tenants across Australia.

“I would like to award the strong men and women of Friends of Public Housing Victoria an Uncle Jack Charles Award for their stand against the ridiculous ‘Three strikes and you’re out’ policy. So many more homeless people –indigenous and non indigenous - will cause a further generation of the forsaken. I’m appalled.”
Jack Charles - Aboriginal Elder Statesman

FOPHV is honoured to receive this award, and we thank Jack Charles for his staunch support. 

How many indigenous public tenants have been evicted due to this policy in Western Australia and Queensland ?

The Three Strikes Eviction Policy is particularly harsh in Western Australia, where three minor incidents in a 12-month period will result in proceedings for termination of the tenancy.

In June 2013 The Equal Opportunity Commission WA issued a report called   ‘A Better Way’.   It was highly critical of the Disruptive Behaviour Management Strategy DBMS- colloquially known as the ‘Three Strikes Eviction Policy’

Quotes from the report by Commissioner for Equal Opportunity WA,

Yvonne Henderson

‘It would appear that public housing tenants are in many cases described in this report subject to a harsher regime than tenants in the private market.’

‘Homelessness should never be used as a punitive measure to shape behaviour in a group with such documented disadvantage’

‘This report recommends that the DBMS scheme should be limited to its original intention – to target dangerous and illegal activities and should not capture the range of normal domestic activities which it does at present.’

Sources

http://v1180u1.vividcluster2.crox.net.au/docs/default-source/publications/a-better-way-report.pdf?sfvrsn=2  Forward and p34

HOUSING - PUTTING YOU IN THE PICTURE

What is the difference between public, community and social housing? 

Aren't they the same thing?  No they are not.

Community Housing is non-government housing which is intended to cater for tenants on

low to moderate incomes. In Victoria they consist of 8 large 'Affordable Housing' Associations which are also property developers and 34 other Community Housing Providers. There is at least 32 other community housing providers operating in Victoria which are not subject to any government policies.

The terms 'community' and 'social housing' should not be confused with public housing. Only public housing is government owned and government managed. There are protections in public housing such as flexible rents based on household income, and security of tenure which are all too often missing in community housing.

The language surrounding the privatisation of public housing is so full of spin that, in the

end, nobody knows what is going on. Warm fuzzy words like 'social', 'community' and 'affordable' housing can make it difficult to see that transferring stock equates to the privatisation by stealth of an essential public asset - public housing.

Look at the term 'not-for-profit'. People sometimes assume that not-for-profits are small

struggling organisations. Not necessarily so. Not-for-profits can be huge companies, most

certainly profit driven, often merging and swallowing up the smaller struggling groups

along the way - in fact behaving just like any other corporation.

Some history.

The growth of 'Community Housing' - sometimes referred to as social housing - and the transferring of public housing properties has already been going on for some years now - under the public radar.

Already Community Housing Providers in Victoria own 8,290 properties which were

funded by the government ( including the transferring of public housing properties.)*

A major marker happened in 2009 at a Council of Australian Governments ( COAG ) meeting. An agreement was made between all the state governments and the federal government – at the time Labor – to ensure that community housing businesses would end up with 35% of all the 'social housing' pie.

This would not be in addition to the amount of public housing available, but at the expense of our existing public housing stock.

In fact, to achieve this goal in Victoria would require a massive transfer of 12,000 public housing properties to community housing companies, and is likely to include public housing estates which are already tenanted. This, of course, was not made at all clear in the ambiguous language of government documents.

Furthermore these proposed transfers do not create any additional housing to meet the desperate need but simply result in a change of ownership and/or management.

The whole topic of the public housing stock transfers ( aka asset transfers ) has been kept

hushed up as 'in-house' information. The people in the know have been the heads of these

organisations, politicians, service providers and people who are working in the industry.

The media have not adequately covered the topic, if at all.

Yet it is an extremely important matter of public interest. This is not just a public tenant issue. The future of public housing concerns us all.

Sources 

'Allocation, eligibility, and rent setting in the Australian community housing sector'  

*p21

 

ANOTHER POLITICAL CLANGER

When the Liberal Coalition party were in power in Victoria, it was alleged that at a meeting between a senior Liberal politician and community housing representatives somebody asked the question

'What about the public tenants?'

Maybe the reason for the question was unease about entering into massive paradigm -shifting changes in housing policy, without the knowledge and consent of the public tenants themselves.

Maybe the questioner was disturbed to be entering into arrangements ( involving the prospect of big, serious money and masses of properties ) which include the very real possibility of mass displacement of public tenants from their homes - the end result being homelessness?

Who knows ?

However, it was alleged that 'community housing' members present at the meeting were told that they needn't be overly concerned because

'PUBLIC TENANTS DON'T FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT THEIR HOMES AS THE REST OF US DO.'

On discussing the fuel exise - ' the poor don't drive'

and the solution for first home owners is 'to get a good job'.

And furthermore, we can rip the homes away from public tenants with impunity because public tenants are somehow different to the rest of society – we don't feel the same way about our homes as other people do …

A dangerous prejudice that attempts to justify policies of mass displacement. 

Take Queensland for example. A decision was made by the Liberals in 2013 to 'move on' - displace - 250,000 !! public tenants from their homes to make way for 'community housing'.  QCOSS supported the government regarding this policy decision. Barely a mention in the news ...

The lack of any outcry or vigorous criticism by other political parties  - who also have a vested interest in the desired outcome -  is just as disturbing.

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/qld-govt-to-shake-up-social-housing-system/story-e6frfku9-1226684848152

More about this in a future post ..

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

DESMOND TUTU

HOMES UNDER THREAT

Friends of Public Housing Victoria is made up of public tenants, supporters and academics who oppose the privatisation of public housing. We oppose the largely secretive practice of transferring public housing properties to community / social housing businesses.

Ms Alma Ryrie-Jones – editor and policy writer has researched and written a 15 page document entitled 'Homes Under Threat'. Alma spoke eloquently at our Film Night in conjunction with Architects For Peace. She suggested a letter writing campaign and is happy to organise this. If you want to get in contact with Alma please drop a line to my email address housing.humanrights@gmail.com and I will forward your details on.

Here are some excerpts from the document Homes Under Threat.

Public housing homes – homes that provide genuine affordability and security for people in need.
53,000 tenants in Victoria call public housing home.

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' Everyone agrees that the shortage of affordable housing is a serious problem, and that there must be an expansion of the stock of available affordable housing to deal with it. There is less agreement about what action should be taken. Instead of reinvesting in upgraded public housing and expanding the stock of public housing, state and territory governments have turned to models of funding and development that involve divesting themselves of the existing assets, responsibilities and structures. This means turning public assets over to private landlords, and with it the power over tenancies. It means giving up any responsibility for the well-being of tenants.' P4.

'Nor does anyone have a vision for a permanent balance that would include retaining public assets. If anything, there is the suggestion that all public housing will eventually disappear into the hands of housing associations and community housing providers – alliances between property developers and not for profit organisations, or not for profit organisations turned developers.'  P6

Spin, secrecy and stock transfers.

'It is difficult to understand why there has been such a limited public debate about these issues and how such major action could be taken on so limited an evidence base.'

Positive labels like ‘social’ and ‘community’ make it difficult for many people to see anything to worry about in these developments, and public tenants themselves are often the last to know or understand what is happening. P7

'A good deal of information goes missing from public sites at the slightest suggestion of criticism or open debate. This lack of open discussion and suppression of information is unhealthy. The arguments for governments getting out of direct provision of public housing have been widely promoted, but the arguments against, or arguments for alternative government approaches, have not been part of the conversation.' P7

'In fact the arrangements appear to have successfully compromised the independence of the very people who have the best record not only of serving and supporting the poor and disadvantaged but in speaking out when governments get involved with unscrupulous developers and try to evade their responsibilities by handing over service delivery and the assets that go with it. We wonder how people would view these changes if they were called ‘privatising’ or, more accurately, ‘giving away’ public housing to the private sector and if advocates of social justice were leading the charge against it, instead of becoming part of it.' P7

The problem was not created overnight and cannot be solved overnight. Long-term thinking and planning is needed, not a focus on short-term gains. Instead, the ‘plan’ is to pass the responsibility to others and relinquish ownership and control to organisations which are at least partly, and sometimes wholly, driven by profit motives.P9

These properties are an asset that cannot be replaced,ever,once lost'  P12

GIVING AWAY PUBLIC HOUSING - CUTTING THROUGH THE HYPE.

Conditions attached to the gifting of public housing.

Since the transfer of titles is sometimes preceded by a period of management outsourcing anyway - lets look at the extraordinary loose conditions placed by the government in Victoria upon the Community Housing Providers who are given the titles of public housing.

 You might think that, in exchange for being given the properties and receiving all the rents, they would be taking over the role of public housing? Think again.

The Government guideline states that 'up to 50%' of the vacancies need to be from the public housing waiting list – or eligible to be on the waiting list. The 'UP TO' loophole renders the whole thing rather meaningless.

A recent Public Private Partnership in Victoria resulted in only 10-15% of its newly built properties being made available to people on low incomes. Obviously the developers and the ALP government think that this is a fair and reasonable exchange.

Maybe this gives us a clue as to what percentage can result under the 'up to 50%' Government guideline.

So - the titles of desperately needed and publicly owned properties are handed over to Community Housing businesses. In return Community Housing allocates up to 50% of vacancies to those on the waiting list or eligible to be on it.

The rest of the vacancies - we predict well over half – can be rented out to prospective tenants with an income of up to $905 gross per week – well above the income threshold of people on low incomes. Compare this with the maximum weekly rates for a person on  Disability Pension -$388       Sole Parent - $360        Newstart -$258

In other words former public housing properties are being given away and end up being offered to a different clientele altogether.

Predictably those at the bottom end of the economic scale, the most disadvantaged people, will fall through the cracks, having had their housing ( public housing ) privatised without them being aware of it. They will end up displaced, living in housing stress, squeezed out to make way for gentrification, living in boarding houses, experiencing food insecurity, or made destitute or homeless. This is why the privatisation by stealth of public housing is such a class issue.

The misuse of Commonwealth Rent Assistance – CRA 

What's more, regarding the percentage of tenancies which are taken from the public housing waiting list, or eligible to be on the waiting list ( a later amendment ) – for these the Community Housing Provider can charge 30% of a renter's income in addition to the maximum amount of Commonwealth Rent Assistance it can, which goes directly to the Community Housing Provider.

As stated by the peak body CHFA - Commonwealth Rent Assistance was never intended as an operating subsidy for Community Housing companies, but has effectively become one over time.

In fact, Commonwealth Rent Assistance adds around 50% to rental income across a provider's whole operation over and above what would be received if rents were not optimised for CRA. The peak body for Community Housing also makes it clear that ongoing access to CRA is 'crucial' to maintaining their businesses. 

That's a hell of a lot of ongoing taxpayer-funded money needed to prop up community housing associations and providers, who now own the properties, in order for them to provide even a percentage of vacancies to those on low incomes and pensions.

The public has a right to know just what community housing - sometimes referred to as social housing - is really costing.

Compare this to Public Housing where tenants receive no Commonwealth Rent Assistance whatsoever, because the rents are genuinely within their means, ( and go back into the public purse ) and you have to ask 'Which is the real subsidised housing here?'

Like the National Rental Affordability Scheme- NRAS - these schemes do not make good financial sense. They are financial black holes which the taxpayer has to pay for.

Sources

http://chfa.com.au/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/docs/eligibility_allocation_and_rent_setting_in_ch_final_april_2014.pdf

pp 22. 41. 43. 44. 45.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/inclusionary-zoning-policies-can-exclude-poorer-residents-from-highend-apartments-20150312-1421a7.html

                                                 FRIENDS OF PUBLIC HOUSING VIC

                                          KEEP PUBLIC HOUSING IN PUBLIC HANDS