Families forced to live in tents at Hobart Showgrounds

FAMILIES with nowhere else to go are turning to Hobart’s showgrounds for shelter, living in tents after being pushed out of their homes by the city’s rental crisis.

WORKING families with nowhere else to go are turning to the Hobart Showground for shelter — living in tents after being pushed out of their homes by the city’s rental crisis.

Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania chief executive Scott Gadd has called for immediate government intervention as family after family turn to him for help.

Mr Gadd estimates about eight families are seeking shelter at the showground, some in caravans, but most in tents or in the back of their cars.

“Since the beginning of December we’ve just been inundated with homeless people,” Mr Gadd said.

“A lot of them are working, a lot of them are families with kids who are trying to go to school and living in a bloody tent at the showgrounds.

“If decent people can’t get accommodation for their families, despite their best endeavours, it’s clearly a crisis.”

Living at the showground — a motorhome park during the off-season — are a mother and her two daughters.

The girls return from school, immaculately dressed in their uniforms and do their homework in the communal kitchen.

There’s a couple living in a tent and their car with their four children, and a stepfather forced to separate from his partner and her eight-year-old daughter after they found temporary accommodation at a shelter.

A family’s campsite at the showground. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

The showground’s longest residents are Connie and her daughter Rachel, who have been there 12 months.

After eight months they gave up looking for a house.

“Then we just decided to give up and do this, (live in the) caravan. My daughter’s in the tent,” Connie said.

“We’ve got our name down for housing of course, but we’ve been told by housing it’s a five to 10-year waiting list.”

Ben has been living at the showground for a month, at first with his partner and her daughter, and now alone.

His partner was fortunate to find a place in a shelter, but the move has meant her eight-year-old daughter has been forced to change schools.

Ben estimates the family has applied for up to 20 rental properties, with no luck.

“We were in a rental property, but the lease didn’t get renewed because the owner’s parents are crook, so they wanted to put them in there,” he said.

“We had about a month’s notice so we started looking pretty hard then, and just haven’t been able to get anything.

“It’s shocking, you get 30 or 40 people at every open home at the moment.”

Ben is a carpenter by trade, but is not working because “it’s hard to get a job when you haven’t got a house”.

The camp kitchen doubles as the ferret pavilion during the Hobart Show. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

He makes a coffee in the kitchen after we chat. There’s no hot water, no fridge — just a kettle, a microwave, toaster and some tables.

Fresh food has to be bought daily, and cooked on the barbecue or in a small oven.

Across the field is Simone, who was told in early December that her landlord was not renewing her lease.

Her family — children aged 7, 9, 12 and 18, and her husband, a working truck driver — have been homeless since February 2.

“I’ve been here since then. I have put in endless, endless applications to private rentals, stuff on Gumtree, realestate.com, Domain, tassierentals, the whole goddamn lot,” she said.

“I’ve applied for over 30 houses since the 5th of December. It has been very stressful.”

Mr Gadd said he believed the state’s politicians were asleep at the wheel.

“It’s all well and good to have all this money being splashed around during this election campaign, but is anyone actually taking this seriously?” he said

TasCOSS chief executive Kym Goodes said families living without access to stable, affordable accommodation was not acceptable in Tasmania.

Ms Goodes said TasCOSS was calling on the state’s major parties to commit to long-term, strategic investment “to ensure we never end up in this situation again”.

“The need for action at both a crisis and long-term level is now critical,” she said.

“The lack of strategic planning and investment over the last 20 years highlights how we have not been focused on all Tasmanians and this is now causing extreme examples of inequality.”

The camp kitchen. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma said the Liberals had come to government in 2014 with a plan to develop more affordable housing.

She said $73.5 million had been invested into stage one of the affordable housing strategy and a further $125 million would be invested if the Liberals were re-elected, which would add 1500 new affordable homes to the market.

Opposition Leader Rebecca White said the Government had failed to act while rental affordability spiralled out of control.

“We are not doing good enough if Tasmanians are being forced to live in tents,” she said.

Labor has said its $106 million affordable housing policy would help 12,800 Tasmanians with improved housing and affordability if elected.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the housing crisis was hitting Hobart hard.

Hobart is the hardest capital city in the country to find a rental property with .03% vacancy.

“We are seeing the results of a housing crisis materialise before our eyes,” she said.

“Ensuring no Tasmanian is left out in the cold will require much greater government investment in affordable housing as well as reining in the explosion of Airbnb. We also need to change planning rules to require new housing developments to have a component of affordable housing.”