Housing trust neighbours causing Premier Malinauskas grief but he says eviction to homelessness would make it worse

Housing Trust neighbours are causing Premier Peter Malinauskas’s neighbourhood grief. But he concedes he, and the state more broadly, are between a rock and a hard place.

Peter Malinauskas and his family. Picture: Instagram

Premier Peter Malinauskas is living near troublesome Housing Trust tenants who are causing “enormous disruption in the street”, but he’s asked “what do you do?”.

He told state parliament that a high-needs young couple recently moved into a Trust home next door in his Bowden-Brompton neighbourhood after a former long-term tenant died.

“We live next door to housing trust in Bowden, Brompton, I’m surrounded by I guess a mix of private ownership and Housing Trust and I’ve only recently bore witness to a property changing over through the death of someone who lived in the Housing Trust home,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“Now (the tenant) has been replaced by a young couple.

“I think it’s fair to say they fit that criteria of being at the most acute end and it causes enormous disruption in the street.

“Good, hardworking people who have bought in the area are having their lives turned upside down because they live next door to a really disruptive housing trust tenant. And what do you do?”

Premier Peter Malinauskas at a Blair Athol Housing Trust home construction announcement last year. Picture: RoyVPhotography

While the state government needed to consider evicting problem tenants when there was no other option, Mr Malinauskas said “but the truth is that we understand that evicting people to homelessness isn’t a particularly thoughtful strategy”.

Eviction could lead to either homelessness or moving the problem elsewhere and this, he said, was an increasingly challenging problem.

His statements follow The Advertiser recently revealing tenants lived in constant fear at a Novar Gardens Housing Trust complex saying they were afraid to leave homes “because of roaming pitbulls, violent, drug-using squatters and bikies”.

Challenging incidents for tenants and neighbours were described as “gut wrenching” by the Premier, who said no one should have to feel unsafe in their own home.

Human Services Minister Nat Cook with Premier Peter Malinauskas outside one of the new six-home public housing development in Ferrymen Park, SA. Picture Emma Brasier

Mr Malinauskas said the make up of Housing Trust homes had “changed dramatically in the past few decades” and now many tenants had acute needs and mental health challenges.

While the state government continued to explore new ways to tackle the issue and work was underway by Human Services Minister Nat Cook, he believed evictions alone were not the answer.

“You can’t go around evicting people all the time because evicting people to homelessness only makes the problem worse,” he said.

Originally published as Housing trust neighbours causing Premier Malinauskas grief but he says eviction to homelessness would make it worse