Talking Point: Many think homelessness is the person’s fault. Once I might have agreed

SUE HICKEY: Many Tasmanians think homelessness is the homeless person’s fault. Once upon a time I might have agreed

PUBLIC HOUSING: State Government must invest more in maintaining and building homes. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

WHEN you look into the eyes of a homeless person you will see fear, despair, a sense of failure, hopelessness and a yearning to be warm, safe and clean. Housing is a basic human need and an important social responsibility for any government.

Recently, greater Hobart was hit by the perfect storm of the disruptive Airbnb technology, a huge increase in construction workers, new migrants and more university students all needing housing.

The Federal Government has been encouraging older people to stay in their homes with limited care, instead of the traditional elder care model. This is cheaper for the Federal Government, but stops the transfer of the larger homes to younger families so they do not come onto the market as quickly.

These factors have led to a huge increase in the cost of the now limited rental stock, and house prices have risen rapidly.

A new class of homeless, the working poor, older women and young kids, have started to swell the waiting lists.

Years of underinvestment by governments have added to the chaos, resulting in people sleeping rough during last year’s cruel winter.

It is not much fun when your rent goes up $60 a week but your wages do not. You have nothing left, and you then forgo the basics such as food and heating.

You begin rationing or going without medicine, and life becomes a complex web of problems and survival. People in our community are regularly going hungry.

I don’t know how much worse the problem would be without the volunteers at the Food Bank, Salvation Army, Vinnies and the City Mission, to name a few.

Welfare organisations estimate 2500 people are homeless every night in Tasmania.

I have seen people in my electorate office who tell me they are sleeping in cars, tents or sheds, and many couch-surf or live with four or more people in one bedroom.

Going to bed in your mate’s lounge room is becoming the new normal for a lot of people.

We have a list of about 3000 people who cannot afford a home and have applied for a public house. The Government has no houses to move them into. None.

There is public housing in Tasmania, where maintenance of simple things does not happen, where windows are boarded up, where rubbish from previous tenants remains, and all of this combines to produce a substandard urban ghetto. We should be ashamed!

The tenant mix in some of the clusters of units could best be described as not well thought out, leaving some in fear for their very existence.

Many fear retribution if they complain.

The Government says it is building 900 houses. Despite constant requests for the actual numbers delivered against those promised, I am left in the dark, despite being a member of the Government.

Of major concern to me has been the change in language.

Way back in July, the Government promised 900 homes to be built by June this year with 500-plus in the greater Hobart region. Sometime later, the language changed to 941 houses and “lots”. A block of land is not shelter.

It appears this target of 900 houses to be constructed was more media spin than reality, with far fewer homes to built by the end of June. As at the end of December there were only 236 homes built.

In the State of the State address to Parliament, the Government said its Housing Action Plans One and Two would deliver more than $200 million in housing over eight years.

Based on the underwhelming $30 million promised for housing in the City Deal, which will deliver 130 homes, the total investment over eight years will be less than 1000 homes in about eight years, but we are 2500 short today.

Will the Government still be in government to deliver this in eight years?

People may ask “well, what is in it for the taxpayer?” and my answer, is savings!

A Salvation Army Officer who works with the homeless told me it is very hard to persuade someone to give rational thought to budgeting when they are cold and hungry, dirty and tired, and see no hope. Mental illness becomes a major issue.

If we provide subsidised housing for people who cannot afford to buy it themselves, we provide hope.

The costs of doing so are far less than treating that person in hospital, far less than the costs of the impact of homelessness on not-for-profit support services doing their best to keep people alive, and indeed get some kids to school. Fortunately, many schools now provide breakfast for kids who are hungry.

Equally any reduction in the recidivism of prisoners released from jail must start with providing accommodation to those people if they have no family to return to. Otherwise, they see the best option is to commit more crime, to get a warm bed in the prison.

Young people who have no stable place to live cannot finish their education and unemployment or underemployment follows. This reduces self-esteem and increases anti-social behaviour and mental illness.

Government must urgently adopt new and innovative methods to increase social housing stocks, improve maintenance and lower running costs for tenants, plus have affordable heating.

I turn to the misconception by the public sector that public housing is a property investment, whereas it is really an infrastructure investment.

We have learned the lesson that letting public housing stock run down is a false economy and really bad policy. The level of investment in maintaining public housing seems average to poor and in some areas we are creating the conditions necessary for urban ghettos to arise.

Winter is here already, and conditions will only get worse for our fellow Tasmanians who are not sharing in this “golden age” economy.

Homelessness, mental health and the state of our health system keep me awake at night. As a government, we must and can do more.

Our economy is buoyant but I know it is not a bottomless pit. We seriously need to reconsider our social agenda. Those of us who enjoy a middle-class existence do not see the well-hidden, or maybe well-ignored, homeless problem.

We need to reconsider our infrastructure priorities, and immediately extend the Government’s Winter Emergency Housing package (due to expire this June) to ensure we do not have people sleeping rough.

If we must have a safety outlet like the Showgrounds, we need to provide onsite security, structurally sound warm tents and basic toilet, shower and kitchen facilities. It was grossly unfair to expect Showgrounds boss Scott Gadd and his team to deal with the situation last year.

Maybe we should reconsider delaying by one year some of our other infrastructure projects, pump the money into housing and bring forward future spending allocated to housing.

The 1970s State Housing debt of $34 million still owed to the Federal Government is a charge of nearly $9 million a year in repayment costs that could be used to build more homes. Our Tasmanian senators need to address this issue as a priority.

I do understand many Tasmanians think homelessness is the homeless person’s fault. Once upon a time I might have agreed.

However, I now work at the coalface, and have come to understand that if you are one pay packet away from financial ruin, if you have lost your job, if you cannot pay your rent, if you are struggling with mental health or family issues, that none of us is immune.

The Government must do more and we as a caring community should do our bit where we can by donating goods, money and time to the not-for-profit sector.

Sue Hickey MHA is Liberal Member for Clark in Tasmania’s House of Assembly.