Rita Panahi: Squatters’ win hurts the real victims of domestic violence
SQUATTERS occupying inner-city houses are using human rights laws to keep out people with a far greater need: victims of domestic violence, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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VICTORIA’S Human Rights Charter is being used to deny victims of domestic violence access to desperately needed public housing.
Freeloading squatters are refusing to vacate government-owned properties earmarked for use by domestic violence victims and they’re using Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities act to get away with it.
More than a dozen inner-city properties acquired by the previous government for the doomed East West Link project are being occupied by squatters.
About 50 of those illegal occupiers have gone to the Supreme Court to fight against eviction orders on the grounds that the government has not afforded them procedural fairness and that they have a right to occupy the properties.
A sense of entitlement is keen among the group, as is a willingness to exhaust legal avenues to remain at the rent-free homes. What makes these squatters think their rights supersede those of battered women and children who would otherwise be living in the properties that have been illegally seized?
Why should they have free use of this prime real estate ahead of those who have languished for years on public housing waiting lists?
These homes are state-owned assets and should be used for those in greatest need, not those willing to exploit laws that are meant to protect Victorians against violence, abuse and ill-treatment.
It’s one thing to be opportunistic and set up home in a vacant property that you have no right to occupy, but it’s quite another to use human rights laws and the court system to stay there and, as a result, deny housing to those in utmost need.
There are about 35,000 Victorians on waiting lists for public housing, with approximately 10,000 applicants in the early housing or emergency shelter category.
Those are people who are considered to be in greatest need, requiring early intervention to prevent them from becoming homeless as well as those suffering from mental illness or fleeing violent households.
It’s the latter category that these properties would be helping if the government was able to proceed with plans to lease the Collingwood and Parkville homes to the Salvation Army, which plans to use them to house women and children escaping domestic violence.
It’s shameful that government resources, including publicly funded lawyers, are tying up the court’s time to further this illegal occupation; our taxes are funding these flights of idiocy.
Thus far, the Supreme Court has been sympathetic to the squatters’ plight, with Justice Clyde Croft making it clear that their rights must be protected and that their possession of the properties must be taken into account.
“Possession is something that common law has recognised for centuries ... the right to possession indeed seems to be recognised in these notices,” Justice Croft said when he granted an interim injunction preventing police from removing the squatters.
“Though where it ultimately goes, of course, is another matter. I mean, you would certainly hope that any relocation of this sort would be properly thought out, an integrated process, and not simply a matter of putting people out on the street.”
Of course the squatters should be given ample opportunity and help to find alternative accommodation — no one is suggesting the properties be raided and their belongings chucked into landfill. But the end result must be the use of these homes for victims of violence.
When police served the unlawful tenants with trespass notices last week, they were at pains to say that the squatters would be given every assistance.
“The occupants of the property will be given reasonable time to vacate and are being offered assistance in finding further suitable housing,” said Leading Constable Kendra Jackson.
THAT message has been repeated by government agencies and Housing Minister Martin Foley.
But it should not be forgotten who are the real victims of this: the poor people denied a home because these squatters decided that their need was more important than the law and those patiently waiting for public housing.
The Housing Minister got it right when he said the priority should be to return these “houses to the Salvos and to make sure homeless families can be housed”.
“These people occupying Bendigo St have been standing in the way of works to be done so the home can become available to a family that needs it,” Mr Foley said. “It is time they left.”
It’s bad enough that the Dan Andrews Government squandered over a billion dollars of your money to avoid building a much-needed road; but now we have human rights laws and the court system used, some would say misused, to prevent the Salvation Army from providing housing to domestic violence survivors.
The rights of legally savvy squatters should never trump those who are in genuine need and playing by the rules.
You cannot simply jump the queue and secure yourself a prime inner-city property rent-free because you don’t like the alternatives.
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