Public housing tenants: Government will introduce a rental bond

SICK of footing the damage bill for rampaging public housing tenants, the state government plans to introduce a rental bond: “Wreck it and lose it.”

A shower area shows the results of neglect and abuse in public housing area in Willmot in Sydney’s west.

SICK of footing the damage bill for rampaging public housing tenants, the state government plans to introduce a rental bond with the warning: “Wreck it and lose it.”

They hope the bond will be an incentive for tenants to maintain taxpayer-subsidised properties.

The state’s new Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard said the $12 million annual maintenance fee for public housing was too high and he didn’t understand why residents were not made to pay a bond.

Zero respect: Public housing trashed by tenants.

Not a fan of cleanliness: Items were hoarded around the property.

Mass clean-up: The damage bill for the Heatley property was $10,800.

“The community housing sector long ago decided that a bond — the same way that you have in the private market — is necessary. It reinforces the message that if you do something bad to this property that you don’t own, you will lose some money to fix it,” Mr Hazzard said.

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“It is a clear warning. That doesn’t happen in public housing. I am looking very closely now into why that hasn’t been implemented.

“I was shocked to hear that message when I was with frontline workers. Unless there is some very substantive arguments that I’ve missed so far, I think as a principle it should be there.”

Mess: Kitchens and living spaces were covered in clutter.

Inside: Papers and rubbish were left in each room.

Electrical cables, discarded toys and items litter the insides of the propery.

Mess: A hole in one of the rooms of the house.

Mr Hazzard said the bond, which could be paid in instalments, would help pay for the millions the government spends each year on damage to public housing properties, the majority of which is wilful destruction by tenants.

“They may not have the money to pay it in one hit, that’s understandable, but they should be paying it in the first six months or 12 months, a small amount each week, so there is a reasonable bond there, so they know if they don’t look after that house, they are not going to stay,” Mr Hazzard said.

Little was left of a fence at this public housing property.

Outside look: The public housing property that tenants damaged.

The state’s former attorney-general, moved into the community services job after the March election by Premier Mike Baird, said “everything is on the table” during his leadership of a portfolio many politicians see as a poisoned chalice.

He is now responsible for the tricky housing portfolio, as well as the state’s most at-risk children.

He recognised successive governments had failed to help children suffering at the hands of negligent parents.

Mr Hazzard said he wanted to see reform in the out-of -home-care of children, particularly after they turn 18 and are left to fend for themselves.

A shower area shows the results of neglect and abuse in public housing area in Willmot in Sydney’s west.

He said that in his time as attorney-general he was “extremely disturbed” that many kids in jail had been through the out-of-home-care system.

“I visited a number of juvenile justice centres and I was extremely disturbed to see up to 50 per cent of the young people had been in out-of-home care. That is atrocious. That is an indictment on us all,” he said.

Former minister Pru Goward flagged a plan to force “high-risk” tenants to pay a bond, but it was never implemented. In the past three years there has been a 75 per cent increase in the amount of wilful damage by public housing tenants — the cost adding to a stretched community services budget.