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Despite government and private sector efforts to the contrary, homelessness, the threat of it and rental affordability (despite the recent fall in rents) remains a problem in our community. Providing housing for all is a difficult and complex task. Front page news in the West Australian this week detailed an altruistic property owner who provided a home to a needy family at a reduced rent was repaid by the occupant trashing the house and causing around $45,000 in damage. Stories like this don’t inspire others to follow the generosity of the owner.

In public housing, the “three strikes” policy for tenants of community provided housing is not working as well as it should but how can it? Not unlike shifting deck chairs on the Titanic, moving a problem tenant out of one property to another or onto the street is hardly a viable long-term solution. Such tenant behaviour justifiably makes us angry; few of us understand (and fewer still sympathise) how somebody provided with a property at below market rent can be so comfortable trashing it then expect to be handed another one on the community purse only to repeat the behaviour. Whilst the government cannot be expected to provide housing to everyone they could improve when it comes to being tougher on recalcitrant tenants and prioritise those on waiting lists.

Media and folk lore stories we hear is why we worry about government housing being built nearby our homes. Fremantle already has the largest concentration of government housing in the metropolitan area. Producing even larger clusters of public housing in a single group of apartments is risky. History shows it is better to mix government housing with private housing. We all agree that we need public housing but who of us really want one (or dozens) next door?

The answer, I think, lies in delivering more affordable housing solutions. Martin Thomas quoted in The Australian states that despite the federal government spending $3 billion each year on rent subsidies, first-home buyer grants and public housing, we remain well short of having enough houses. It is preferable for those on low incomes to take on affordable mortgages to own their own home rather than rent which makes perfect sense. Pride of ownership of your home would surely mitigate any propensity to mistreat it.

Other emerging forms of community housing and development are also going to play an important role in the near future.

by Hayden Groves
REIWA President
REIA Deputy President