Planned and regular maintenance a must for public housing

Increased expenditure on maintenance since 1995 has not kept pace with demand. According to local activist, Ross Smith, additional charges directed at tenants including higher rent and water charges, offer no solution. The funds will need to come from elsewhere. Mr Smith insists that government has a duty of care to tenants, and asks, “What risk management strategies have been put in place?”

It’s a question very much in line with a recent Auditor General’s report which refers to the need for urgent attention, especially in regard to completing property condition surveys.

The SSH has conducted its own survey on Elizabeth and Walker Street properties in Redfern. Tenants confirm that, over the last ten years, only urgent repairs have been made. Indications of neglect are numerous, and include badly broken pathways, rusted guttering and problems with drainage, inadequate lighting, exposed electrical wires, the stench of garbage in waste-disposal shutes, and guano-encrusted common area floors.

“We’re treated as second-class citizens,” one tenant remarked. “And these are our homes. The dull paintwork, the corrosion and the filth – it makes you feel so depressed.”

Many tenants refer to cost-cutting measures, as well as to insensitive treatment on the part of maintenance call centre operators. “It makes you think they want the building to fall down,” says one despondent long-term resident. Says another, “Yes, and it makes you think they want us to leave so they can sell the property.”

Photo: Andrew Collis - Caption: Only urgent repairs have been made

Source: South Sydney Herald July 2007 http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/