South Australian Housing Trust hopefuls face new challenges to securing a home

HOUSING Trust tenants will be stripped of their right to a so-called “house-for-life” and may even have to sign on for employment training before they are given a home. What do you think — take our poll

Housing Trust area - Davoren Park. (Roger Wyman)

HOUSING Trust tenants will be stripped of their right to a so-called “house-for-life” and may even have to sign on for employment training before they are given a home.

The State Government has accepted a recommendation that tenants lose their right to a “house-for-life’’ in exchange for temporary accommodation until they can find and afford a private alternative.

The recommendation is contained in a three-yearly review of Housing Trust operations.

The Housing Trust is battling to house a waiting list of 21,000 people, but The Advertiser revealed this month 5000 Trust tenants are paying full market rent to the State Government.

Housing Trust Tenants Association assistant secretary Julie MacDonald rejected the changes and said it would force many single mothers into unstable private rental situations.

“What people and especially the children need is to be in one location, where they can go to school, settle down, have a pet and grow up in a stable situation, without the private-rented house being sold from under them, or their conditions changed,’’ she said.

“This (temporary housing) is what (Liberal National Party Premier) Campbell Newman is doing in Queensland and we were hoping it would not happen here.’’

The review based its recommendation for the end of the “house-for-life” system on a change in Western Australia in 2010, which defined taxpayer-funded housing as a “temporary” option, and a similar change in New Zealand.

“This can be simply put as a shift from a ‘house for life’ to a ‘transition oriented’ social housing system,’’ the review states.

Ms MacDonald also said another plan to abolish the third of three waiting-list categories, which has been accepted by the State Government, was also controversial.

Category 3 includes 12,400 people on the Housing Trust waiting list of around 21,000.

“Category three people are the majority of those on the waiting list and can’t just be disappeared,’’ Ms MacDonald she said.

But the State Government has only offered qualified support for a third recommendation to force tenants, 82.9 per cent of whom are on some form of government assistance, to sign on for “employment and training’’ as well as other self-improvement options, when they get a home.

In a response tabled in State Parliament yesterday by the Minister for Social Housing Zoe Bettison, the State Government response to this idea stated: “The South Australian Government would need to investigate how ‘housing assistance agreements’ would operate and whether they would be the best method to achieve the same outcome before supporting the recommendation’’.

“The idea of ‘housing assistance agreements’ requires further investigation before it is supported.’’

The State Government also committed itself to a broader range of financial assistance for people wanting help with private rent.

“That the viability of generic medium-term private rental assistance products be investigated along the lines of United States tenant-based housing vouchers with the aim of providing an attractive alternative to social housing,’’ its response to the review states.