Home Truths

We're very pleased to present this guest appearance from Jennifer Stone, a renter in the Snowy Monaro region, who has recently started a group for renters in the region to connect and discuss local renters issues. The original version of this article was published on their Facebook page.

The home of the silenced

Snowy Monaro renters welcomes you to come into our place and sit with us a while. There is something vital we need to tell you, something which concerns us all.  If you come to know who we are and our situation, you will understand.

We come from diverse backgrounds, interests, beliefs and aspirations, yet we are a family, united by common experience. Though we are significant in number, we are marginalised, distained, unheard and unknown. We have no real shelter, but pay a high price to dwell where the walls of greed’s injustice over shadow us - and block us from a home.

We know our nations’ harsher reality, our nation’s pain. We offer you home truths, and hope you will hear us. Until we are heard, our nation is in plight.

Towns prosper when we prosper and whither when we thirst

While a substantial amount of our income goes to supporting landlords and real estates, we spend much that is left in our community. In this way we provide vital support to the local economy and help it stay afloat.  Our numbers have brought extra medical centres, high schools and supermarkets to service the community.

We work in almost every sector of the region. Our children represent a significant number of the student population in the regions’ schools.  Amongst us are also pensioners and those struggling to find jobs in our community. For those on social security payments without community or state housing, average rental costs are prohibitive. 

The economy is much impacted by the increasing and excessive rents in our region. Renters face great hardship and are struggling to find money for even the most essential items. There is a shortage of permanent rental properties appropriate to our means and needs.  As rents are becoming unaffordable, Snowy Monaro renters are increasingly forced to pay for sub standard housing with inefficient heating, lacking proper insulation. High power bills cripple our financial capacity.

If we complain at our conditions or at breaches by the landlord and real estate, we face eviction in retaliation, and inter real estate black lists. Indeed there is a special provision so landlords may give termination notices for “no grounds” – this is so the tenant can not argue their eviction (even with much evidence of retaliation by landlord and real estate).

As we are forced to leave a place and go to another, we have to find bond money, we lose pay days while moving and sick days from intense rental stress. Children suffer from such destabilisation, as does the whole community. In general we are in an ever growing inescapable cycle of debt. Our plight impacts the community’s well being as a whole. We see our regions’ potential for prosperity much diminished as rents become unaffordable - yet the financially powerful minority, seem blind to this.

We suffer from divisive and prejudicial myths

It seems there is a myth amongst some landlords who own local businesses that they are the backbone of the community. They say that renters are lowly “lazy”, “dirty”, drug addicted, poor “dole bludgers” who are beneficiaries of their “hard work”. They speak of us as second class citizens, less important than themselves. Some real estates call the renter “scum” and we know for sure they treat us as such.

Derogatory myths can create a painful reality. The myth that the majority of renters are financially poor has now come to express fact. As houses have become unaffordable, rent has become unaffordable. Both renter and mortgaged landlord share the pain of immense financial pressure, often in debt and living beyond their means – an economic climate stirred by the greed and power lust of just an elite few. This pressure has lead to an economy where those who have more financial wealth, gain more each day and those who have less financial wealth, lose more each day.

The average wage hardly changes while rents go up exponentially. Renters are paying their landlords’ mortgage along with their own increasing debts. Landlords who have no mortgage are greedily extorting tenants, renting out sub standard houses at excessive market prices. Such landlords hold shelter to ransom. As landlords increase their ability to buy yet another house, renters become more likely to never have a home. The myth that renters are lazy while landlords worked hard for what they have, purveys a great falsehood. Indeed, renters work doubly hard for what their landlords have! We are the hand that feeds the landlord, are we not?

Wisdom heals the prejudice and division

Those who have become financially impoverished are not worth less. The financially rich are not worth more.  There is nothing which can diminish the worth of any being.   All people are  intrinsically valid, necessary to each other and vital in their unique contribution. No one is better than or less than another. In truth we are really one, there is no division.

Everyone creates the community and all are responsible for the conditions of that community. Prejudicial myths inevitably create the worst of conditions for all. A myth which divides people by declaring some of greater worth and others of lessor worth, by any measure, must inevitably lead to a conflict for power and recognition. This conflict develops a ravishing greed which devastates and seeks to devalue all contesting its path. This in turn gives rise to mass poverty, disenfranchisement, marginalisation, cruelty and suffering.

A harmonious and prosperous community would grow, if it was understood that we are all equal yet unique, individual yet one. If all are seen of vital worth, no one would seek to devalue another nor make a house of greater value than the people who dwell there. Divisive myths of prejudice blind the powerful minority to their own truth and the truth of their nation. 

The home truths which can heal us – please listen, please hear us

We are your kin, your sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents, children, and, generations to come. We are one. In truth, we are you. What happens to any one happens to all.  No one is at home when all about them are homeless, paying for insufficient shelter, exposed to greed, extortion, repression, and eviction at a landlord’s whim.  A house which comes by way of life long debt or subjugation of another can never be a home for anyone. The nation cannot be at peace, when so many are unsettled.  

When values of decency are worth less than values of commodity our nation is impoverished.  Happiness, not commodity, is the measure of a nation’s wealth. A nation is truly wealthy when its people enjoy a peaceful home without fear of eviction, where all may contribute to society through unique expression, welcome in the nations embrace. A nation is not wealthy if its people are homeless, enslaved and in perpetual debt. If on paper a house is worth a million dollars, it is worth nothing to those who cannot call it home - that paper value serves no one if its cost destroys life. Money on a graph is not food we can eat and property on a graph is not a place to shelter.

Houses are homes and not commodity. Economists devoid of moral compass, call out triumphant when run down cottages sell at palatial prices - while homelessness ravages the nation. Who gains when the majority have no claim to home, striving to survive, and backs bent to power thirsty property managers who lack empathy, and distain ethics? How is it that the financially powerful minority of this nation sanctify greed without question – do they not see the greater part of their nations’ family in despair.  Muted acquiescence to raging greed makes all of us complicit in the theft of happiness from generations to come.

What we do to another we do to ourselves - when did people abandon this eternal guidance? The ancient truths have never changed, we reap what we sow. Seeds of kindness bear fruits of happiness, fulfilling and empowering all. When the nurturing harvest of this wisdom is ravaged, hunger for power grows, casting seeds which bear injustice, cruelty, drought and despair. 

There are elderly pensioners eating from cans of pet food to pay the rent, suffering the pain of eviction when the landlord sells for their needed profit, did you know? This is our pain as a nation, this is our home truth.

Let’s meet again and find a better way.

 By Jennifer Stone of Snowy Monaro Renters

National Sorry Day 2017

Today marks 20 years since the Bringing Them Home report was tabled in parliament. Most Australians know where they come from and where they can be at home, for the Stolen Generations this connection was often shattered. Language, connections to ancestral country and families were lost for many. New relationships had to be established, and old pain still needs to be healed.
National Sorry Day is the first step on the path to reconciliation and tomorrow we start National Reconciliation Week 2017.
Today, we say sorry. We say sorry to all those affected by the Stolen Generations policies, and other historic and current Australian policies which have resulted in significant disadvantage being placed on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across New South Wales and the entire country.
Saying sorry doesn’t mean a lot if you don’t also work to address the wrong. For the Tenants’ Union we work with Aboriginal networks such as the Aboriginal Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services, both to address individual tenancy disputes, and systemic issues such as the quality, funding and management of Aboriginal housing in New South Wales.

This artwork was created by Pauline Coxon, former tenancy advocate and Biripi artist living on Ngarigo country. Entitled Making Tracks to your Tenancy, Coming Home. Today it speaks to us of the the value of knowing where your home is, as we work towards ensuring all people can create spaces in which they can feel at home.

See Pauline’s work for the Tenants’ Union here: https://tenants.org.au/news/artwork-aboriginal-artist-pauline-coxon

News from Central Dogma

You most likely do not know it – assuming you are halfway normal, you have almost certainly never even considered the question – but the Tenants’ Union’s network runs deep. Like the all-pervasive roots of an old growth forest, the subject of a Dan Brown novel, or an unhinged diatribe from Alex Jones, we form part of a global system…of tenants’ interest groups.

From Tanzania to Tennessee – and of course Telopea – we are at the coalface advocating for tenants’ rights. And like any global society, we have our own international headquarters. The International Union of Tenants was born in Zurich in 1926, but now finds its home in Stockholm.

International Union of Tenants General Secretary Magnus Hammar (dressed as Pitbull)

Whilst we appreciate the insights and perspective afforded to us by this intercontinental connectedness, we aren’t really detailing our every move back to Sweden. Plus our membership of the IUT is by free association. So put away that tinfoil hat!

And something provided to us recently by the IUT as part of their regular email rounds did give us food for thought. As you probably do know, rent control and its numerous variants have featured prominently in housing conversations of late.

The IUT highlights recent comments made by Kshama Sawant, a Seattle City council member, on the topic of controlling rents. Councillor Sawant compares rent regulation to minimum wage laws; ‘they are both minimum standards necessary to protect against the natural imbalance of power between landlord and tenant, or employer and employee. Rent control is not about repealing the market; it’s about reining in its excesses.’

We really should stress that Sawant’s views do not form part of any official TU position, decreed to us from above. And in any case, it’s not entirely clear which form of rental regulation the Councillor favours.

But we certainly applaud her comparison as both refreshing and engaging, in consideration of the proper role of Government in regulating markets for living space. Given the fundamental importance of shelter – a human right, after all – is it appropriate that we see its attainment as worthy of the same protection as the celebrated right to basic remuneration? How would we best achieve that in addressing the question of rent regulation?

And how would such an approach impact upon other facets of renting policy or housing affordability issues? For one, the Tenants' Union is a long-term proponent of the abolition of no grounds terminations for tenants in NSW. They feed housing insecurity, and disadvantage tenants in every aspect of their relationship with the landlord. At the very least, we suggest that this issue could also be looked at through a very similar lens. 

On a related note, the IUT would be pleased to have us remind you that October 5 is International Tenants Day! Get the streamers ready and the party pies in the oven. And stay tuned from us – we must just have a celebration going here at home.

The Real Magnus Hammer, Sydney, November 2012

Read more on the Tenant's Union's position on 'no grounds' terminations in our 5 Year report on the Residential Tenancies Act 2010

Vale Nelson Mandela

We pay our respects on the passing of Nelson Mandela.

Amongst the huge achievements that Mandela made, and made possible, in the realisation of human rights, we'll highlight just one: the right to housing in the South African Constitution.
  
26. Housing

1. Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing.

2. The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right.

3. No one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions.

Vale Nelson Mandela.

'Housing as a human right': ATSI Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda

We were honored to have the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, speak to tenant advocates at our recent network meeting.

Here's the text of his speech, 'Housing as a Human Right'.

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It is with respect and gratitude that I acknowledge that we sit today on the lands of the Awabakal and Worimi peoples.

My people are the Gangulu from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland. On behalf of my Elders I also pay tribute to your Elders, both past and present, for their continued struggle for their country and their culture.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. The work that you do assisting tenants is challenging. You are often dealing with a range of complex needs that span beyond tenancy law. Your advocacy is crucial for a group of people who often some of the most marginalised in our community.
Today I would like to extend the way you may view your work and some of the tools available to you. The Tenants Union is part of a long tradition of fighting for housing justice, as I understand, going all the way back to 1910. What I want to add to this robust tradition is a human rights approach.

In my mind, all of you here today are human rights workers. Your work helps individuals realise their rights everyday, in particular the right to adequate housing. I will explain further and introduce you to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a tool to guide your engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

I will also speak briefly about the campaign for constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - one of my key areas of advocacy.

But firstly, let me start by giving you an outline of this position that I currently occupy, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Social Justice Commissioner, and a snapshot of my agenda.
2013 marks the 20th year since this position came into being as a result of the Native Title Act, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and a HREOC Inquiry into racial hatred. Previous Social Justice Commissioners are Professor Mick Dodson, Dr Bill Jonas, Dr Tom Calma and Ms Zita Antonios.

The Social Justice Commissioner role has some statutory duties. I’m required to provide to the Australian Parliament an annual Social Justice Report and I also provide a report on Native Title. I’m also required to:

• review the impact of laws and policies with regard to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• promote an Indigenous perspective on issues and 
• monitor the enjoyment and exercise of human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

But in a real sense, I’m handed these general directions and it’s up to me to sort out my priorities in terms of how I do what the legislation requires of me.

As Social Justice Commissioner I have only six staff, so I quickly realised that it would be unrealistic to pick even one of the myriad of challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - housing, health, education to name a few and expect to fix it by January 2015.

I believe that fixing these issues will require the intergenerational commitment of the whole nation.

After listening and accepting the reality of the limitations of this position compared to the enormity of the task confronting us, at the centre of my priorities is the belief that we need to firstly develop stronger and deeper relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the rest of the Australia.

Secondly, we need to develop stronger and deeper relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and all levels of government.

Thirdly, we need to develop stronger and deeper relationships between ourselves as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

I believe human rights are one of the most powerful tools to help build good relationships.

Let me be honest, I have worked in Indigenous affairs for all of my professional life and when I was approached about this position as Commissioner I was hesitant at first because I didn’t see myself as a human rights activist. But as one of my closest colleagues pointed out, you can’t work in Indigenous affairs without being a human rights activist. Working on Indigenous issues means that you are working with human rights day in and day out.

One of the main challenges I face as Social Justice Commissioner – and the Australian Human Rights Commission faces more generally – is communicating to the Australian public what ‘human rights’ mean in practice. Human rights are not just abstract concepts that exist in documents such as treaties, conventions and declarations alone.

Human rights provide governments with a set of minimum legal standards which must apply equally to all people. A human rights framework provides parameters – universally agreed parameters – for a society to foster dignity and equality of all citizens. And equality means substantive equality – equality in outcomes, not just in writing.

Fortunately, most Australians are lucky enough to take human rights for granted. But for those rights to be realised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, additional support and focus is often required.

So what does this mean in your daily work?

You may not be as familiar with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2007 and is the foundation document in human rights for all Indigenous peoples.

The Declaration contains a number of key principles underpinning the rights it protects. Those key principles can be summarised as:

• First, self-determination
• Second, participation in decision-making and free, prior and informed consent
• Third, respect for and protection of culture
• Fourth, non-discrimination and equality.

The Declaration also contains specific guidance around housing. Article 21 provides that Indigenous peoples have the right, without discrimination, to the improvement of their economic and social conditions, including housing.

Article 23 of the Declaration states that Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, Indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic

I am sure you are all familiar with the human right to adequate housing. The right to an adequate standard of living, including housing, is found in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Australia is a party, recognises the right to adequate housing and commits state parties to take appropriate steps to ensure the realisation of this right and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions.

I think these Articles are very important because they acknowledge two areas of concern in terms of Aboriginal housing.

Firstly, the impact of discrimination in housing. I am thinking, for instance, of the work that you do assisting with people who have faced racism in terms of tenancy.

Secondly, the Declaration recongises the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s being involved in the decisions around housing, especially through Aboriginal housing organisations. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing organisations can be an important model of self determination. That is, putting our communities in control of the decisions that affect them.

The Declaration is also clear about the role of government in the progressive realisation of rights, such as the right to adequate housing. We all know the Aboriginal housing stock is often run down and inadequate in both remote, rural and urban areas. Governments have a responsibility to improve this situation.

So, once again, how can you use the Declaration in your work?

I think if you keep coming back to those four principles I just mentioned- self- determination, participation in decision-making and free, prior and informed consent, respect for and protection of culture and non-discrimination and equality you get a good idea about the what this means in practice.

I challenge people from all walks of life to apply these four principles to the work they do with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It might be as simple as making sure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved in your decision making and actively consulted about your services. It might be seriously considering some of the cultural barriers that make accessing your service challenging for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and then developing a plan to address this. It might be thinking of a way you can celebrate the vibrancy and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in your community.

These are just ideas, ultimately, what I am saying is that putting the Declaration into practice is not a program of work, nor is it a tokenistic checklist. It is an approach. It requires attitudinal shift, self reflection and the willingness to actively listen and engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

At the big picture level, another way to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander is through the campaign for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australia Constitution.

A referendum to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution is an opportunity to redefine our national identity based on recognition, respect and inclusion and to change the role of government in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ lives.

A successful referendum will encourage reconciliation among all Australians and can enable practical improvements to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reforming the Constitution will also provide an opportunity for all Australians to acknowledge and be proud of our histories and cultures that existed – and continue to exist – before the Constitution was written.

In February we witnessed a historic step toward a referendum when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 (Act of Recognition) was passed unanimously through Federal Parliament. The Act of Recognition provides acknowledgement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique place as Australia’s first peoples. It also prescribes that a review will be commenced considering proposals for constitutional change, their likely levels of support in the community and likelihood of success. This report must be completed by 27 September 2014 and tabled in parliament within 15 sitting days.

The Act of Recognition is a welcome development but it is only a first step. I urge the Government to build on the work of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Expert Panel). The recommendations acknowledge the need to couple recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australia’s first peoples with reforms to address the provisions of the Constitution which permit, enable or anticipate racial discrimination.

The success of constitutional reform lies in the hand of every day Australians and the ability to organisations like yours to join this campaign. A public education campaign is being run by Reconciliation Australia.

At the moment, before we know what the referendum question will be, the aim is to try and build popular support and momentum across the community.

If anyone here is looking for resources to do your own bit of community education and campaigning, ANTaR has put together some very useful material on their website and I highly recommend you take a look. The You Me Unity website was established by the Expert Panel specifically as a tool for engaging the public on constitutional recognition. It continues on as a space for this public conversation and also hosts useful educational material. Recognise also have a very informative and engaging website.

There is a long way to go on constitutional reform. But I believe in the innate decency of the Australian people to walk with us on this next important stage of our national journey towards reconciliation.

I want to finish by saying your work helping people secure their housing helps meet some of our most fundamental human rights. I thank you for your work and your time today.