CONCERNED residents of White Gum Valley say a troubling rise in antisocial behaviour in the suburb is being overlooked by authorities. 

A concerned resident posted a video on a local Facebook group this week showing a group of youngsters fighting in the street and shouting obscenities at each other. 

In the video’s caption, the resident says he has lodged at least 20 complaints with Homeswest because of the antisocial behaviour.  

The resident says he has tried several other avenues to get help, including the police and police minster, council members, and local politicians. 

Former convenor of the White Gum Valley precinct Mark Woodcock says there is a range of issues stemming from some troublesome tenants, which he reckons has escalated in the last “four or five months”. 

“There’s been plenty of car break ins,” Mr Woodcock said. 

“There’s lots of rubbish dumping again now, which normally means someone’s moving in house.

“Buildings and walls have been graffitied again too.”   

Public housing

Public housing itself isn’t the problem, Mr Woodcock says, but he criticised the government’s decision to concentrate housing in a certain area, which he says allows disruptive tenants “to cause problems”. 

“It’s really to do with the density, not the fact that we have public housing,” he said. 

“We have to have it, the government just needs to be more strategic about how it puts it in.

“If you stuck one social housing unit on every block, or every second block, you wouldn’t have issues like they had in Beaconsfield,” he said, referencing community issues caused by troublesome residents in the ‘Beacy Bronx’. 

Current Greens member and Former Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt says there needs to be a more “integrated response” to instances of “terrifying” antisocial behaviour associated with government housing in the area. 

“The processes that the Department of Communities are using to deal with disruptive tenants just isn’t working,” Dr Pettitt said. 

“It’s something that gives social housing a bad name, when it actually should be a welcome part of our community.” 

Dr Pettitt said the Department’s has a “weird, hands off approach” with an attitude that “hopes the problem goes away”. 

“These issues aren’t being dealt with appropriately,” he said. 

 “They’re not getting on top of it and actually giving these residents the services they need.”

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER