Unsettled - life in Australia's private rental market

Last year Choice, the National Association of Tenant Organisations* and National Shelter conducted a survey of Australian tenants. It asked questions about life in Australia's private rental market, like how easy it is to find a place to live and what it's like applying for a tenancy, what condition is your home in and how easy is it to get the landlord to follow through with repairs, how often do you move and why, and how much does it all cost?

Today the findings from this survey will be published in UNSETTLED - Life in Australia's Private Rental Market.

It makes for interesting reading. From the report:

Our survey indicates that for the increasing number of Australians who rent, housing is frequently poor quality, insecure and unaffordable. Many tenants feel they are not catered to when searching for a new home. Some face discrimination on a range of grounds. Rental properties are not always in an acceptable condition and landlords are not always responsive to requests for repairs and maintenance needs. Tenants can be reluctant to ask for repairs or complain about their housing, because they're concerned about eviction or a rent increase they can't afford.

Key findings include:

• 83% of renters in Australia have no fixed-term lease or are on a lease less than 12 months long
• 62% of people say they feel like they can’t ask for changes
• 50% of renters report experiencing discrimination when applying for a rental property
• 50% of renters worried about being listed on a residential tenancy database
• 20% renters experiencing leaking, flooding and issues with mould 
• 8% of renters are living in a property in need of urgent repairs

Sound familiar? Australia's housing system is doing a poor job for tenants in the private rental market. That accounts for about a third of the population, but tenants experiences rarely feature in discussions about national housing policy. These discussions need to focus on more than just affordability and whether or not we'll ever be able to buy - Australia needs to take a good look at just what we're getting when we pay the rent.

***

Discussing the report this morning, CHOICE CEO Alan Kirkland said:

For Australians who don't own a home, renting should be a secure and affordable option free of fear and discrimination. Unfortunately, the research reveals a significant power imbalance between tenants and landlords, leading to a culture of fear that means many renters stay silent when something goes wrong. 

It’s deeply concerning that common features of everyday life like having children, receiving a government payment or owning a pet can be major barriers for renters trying to find a home.

NATO spokesperson Ned Cutcher said:

All too often, we hear that people are reluctant to complain to agents or landlords because they’re worried about rent increases or eviction. This research shows that this fear is widespread with 50% of renters worried about being listed on a so-called “bad tenant database". 

When people do raise an issue with a property, landlords and agents can really drag their feet before they fix the problem with 21% of renters waiting over a week to get a response about an urgent repair request.

National Shelter's Executive Officer, Adrian Pisarski said:

Tenants are often the last group to be asked about the housing challenges Australia faces. This research has tenants talking about their experiences of the system in a way that’s not often considered in debates about housing. 

Renters face constant insecurity, 83% are without a fixed-term lease or are on a lease less than 12 months long.

As more Australians enter the rental market, we need a national plan to boost supply, especially for low income households, whilst also addressing security, rights and amenity.

Download the report here

*TUNSW is a member of the National Association of Tenant Organisations.

Why all politicians should support tenants' rights

Yesterday the Australian Senate passed a motion seeking the implementation of a national minimum standard of tenancy rights. Senators Lee Rhiannon of the Greens, and Doug Cameron of the ALP introduced the motion, and Senator Rhiannon tweeted about it after it passed.

The full text reads that the Senate:

a) Notes that: 

i) The proportion of Australians leasing in the private rental housing market is the highest in over 50 years; 

ii) Long-run structural changes in Australia' s housing system are leading to increasing numbers of households choosing to rent on a long-term and in some cases, a permanent basis; 

iii) Comparative international studies, including a 2011 study by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, show that tenancy laws administered by the Australian States and Territories perform poorly in the provision of tenant protections against arbitrary eviction, excessive rent increases and allowing tenants the full enjoyment of their home; 

iv) In the absence of affordable owner-occupied housing, life-long renting is now a prospect for many people; 

v) Australian tenancy laws may no longer be fit for purpose; and

b) Calls on the government to: 

i) Work with the States, Territories and relevant non-government organisations to set national minimum tenancy standards to ensure that tenants' rights are protected in relation to matters including fairer processes around lease terminations and evictions, fair standards to govern the amounts by which rents can be increased and provide for long-term residential leases that enable households the full enjoyment of a secure home.

This is a welcome development - while the states and territories administer their own tenancy laws, the cultural conceptions and attitudes towards renting are fairly common throughout the country. Each of the laws reflect this. No state in Australia has banned "no grounds" evictions as a way of promoting long-term residential leases, though the ACT and Tasmania have come the closest. No state in Australia effectively protects tenants against excessive rent increases, though again the ACT comes the closest.

What this motion really tells us is that the changing profile of households renting their home is beginning to make a difference in electoral politics. In the last NSW election, we saw the seat of Newtown won by the Greens' Jenny Leong who, among other things, ran on a tenants' rights platform. As the number of people affected by poor renting laws grows, the conversation of how we as a community value the safety and stability of a rented home will only grow as an electoral issue. It will especially grow away from the inner city.

Indeed politicians of all parties should take note as the profile of whole electorates will change with the growth of the tenant population. We noted before the previous Federal Election, some particular marginal seats and their renting populations. It will be interesting to do the same again in April with new Census figures and the current parliament. The increasing inaccessibility of property ownership through ever rising prices means the pool of landlords may also begin to shrink. Already some are reporting an increase in the size of individual landlords' portfolios, and this is something we've noted ourselves before, too.

More people staying in the rental market for longer - particularly those whose upbringing might have delivered an expectation of home-ownership at some stage in life - means an increasing range of political views and allegiances will start to converge on the question of tenants' rights. Voters from across the spectrum will inevitably begin to question why the law allows them to be removed from their homes when they have done nothing wrong. While it can be easy to point people further and further from the city in search of affordable home ownership as their means of achieving some security of tenure, this will not last long as a solution.

Perhaps they will even question why it is that investors appear to be living quite so large on the public purse - through tax breaks that cost the national budget literally billions of dollars each year - without ever having to justify the results. And while many will retain the aspiration and appetite to invest in property, if they are not lucky enough to come from a property owning family the barriers to entry will continue to grow faster than they can keep up. This will leave some wondering whether their vote is worth leaving with any political parties who may continue to have a tin ear to their plight.

Some politicians are starting to cotton onto this, and that's a good sign for those of us working for better tenancy laws across the country. Let's keep it up!

Vale Ross Smith

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Ross Smith - a tireless advocate for fairness in the housing system, and member of the Tenants' Union of NSW.

Ross Smith, Waterloo.

Ross was actively involved with the Waterloo Neighbourhood Advisory Board as the Peoples Precinct representative. He was a member of Counterpoint Community Services, King Cross Community Centre and South Sydney Community Aid, Treasurer and long-standing member of REDWatch, and volunteered with the South Sydney Herald. He was also an active member of the Australian Labor Party.

Ross was always willing to say what many others would not regarding social housing policy - or as he would say 'public and community housing' policy. He strongly disliked the term social housing.

He was a strong advocate. He was always a touchstone for those who might stray too far from hearing tenants' voices. He was also keen to stay in touch with tenants from across the state and would travel across Sydney to be at tenants' events. He had a passionate commitment to tenant participation.

Ross was well known in Waterloo and the wider public and community housing community for his tireless advocacy work. He will be sadly missed.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Vale.

New strata rules and you

Starting 30 November 2016, there will be some significant changes to the laws affecting tenants living in strata blocks. That's actually a lot of us - more than half of all people living in strata in NSW are tenants.
You can read more about the changes here, but what are the big changes that will be of particular interest to tenants? As is often the case with legislative reform, it's a mixed bag. Here are the ups and downs of four big changes which will affect tenants.

Pets

Considering the futility of life without strong tenancy rights

The model by laws will now be much more pet friendly. The default position will be that pets are allowed so long as the pet owner is responsible for the animal.
This is only the default for new by-laws. Existing strata schemes will need to vote to adopt the change, and even new strata schemes can choose not to use it - and maintain an anti-pet stance.
Of course no matter what the strata scheme decides, currently your landlord still has the ability to put a no-pets clause in a residential tenancy agreement. There is still a long way to go before tenants might make grown-up decisions about pets for themselves.

Washing

Hang me out to dry, you wrung me out, too too too many times

Good news - hanging your washing up on your balcony will no longer be a breach of the by laws, so long as it's not hanging over the balcony railings. Again, this only applies to strata schemes which adopt the new by laws.

Over occupancy

We won't take up too much room!

One of the interesting changes is the ability for strata schemes to limit the number of people who can live in the premises to no more than two adults per bedroom.
By extension, tenants will have clearer protections against strata schemes arbitrarily deciding to cancel key cards with the introduction of this by law removing one of the dodgy reasons some strata schemes have used to lock tenants out of their homes.
It's important to remember that vulnerable tenants who are being forced into overcrowded accommodation may not actually have much of a choice in these matters. That's not to say strata should allow overcrowding, but it is important that it is the exploitative landlord who is penalised by their breach rather than their vulnerable sub tenants. It is not clear in the new law that this will always be the case.

Tenant representation

Whiskers thought he was fitting in well
at his first strata committee meeting

There are two aspects of the new legislation that let tenants have something of a say in their strata community. Any tenant will be entitled to attend any meeting of the owners corporation (except during discussions of financial matters), though they won't be allowed to speak or vote.
In strata schemes where more than 50% of the lots have tenants, the tenants will be able to elect a tenant to represent who can speak, but not vote, on their behalf. How effective this will be at ensuring the majority of the strata community is heard remains to be seen.

Let's walk the talk in Waterloo

Today's entry on The Brown Couch is by Julie Foreman, Executive Officer at the Tenants' Union of NSW. 

Last Thursday (February 11), I attended a public meeting on the redevelopment of the Waterloo public housing estates hosted by Jenny Leong MP, one of two Members of Parliament representing the suburb. Over one hundred local tenants attended. Also in attendance was the Social Housing Minister, Brad Hazzard MP, shadow Social Housing Minister Tania Mihailuk MP, and FACS Deputy Secretary Southern Cluster, Paul Vevers. I was heartened by the level of interest and attendance by all stakeholders.

Can the Government balance competing interests and walk the talk in Waterloo?

Tenants expressed anxiety and confusion about the announcement. The following snippets capture the questions and concerns raised:

“Is my home being demolished?”

“When will I be moving?”

“Where will I be moving to?”

“Will I get a like-for-like house when I move?”

"Why do I have to lose my home, my community, my security?"

“I feel like my life will be on hold for the next 5 years."

“How are you going to deal with all the extra parking needed?”

“I am afraid of moving away from my health supports and friends”

“Will you cover my moving costs?”

“Why didn’t you take the last 10 years of consultations into account?”

“You just sprung it on us before Christmas with a flyer under my door!”

The Minister suggested to participants that meetings such as these just scare and raise anxiety. I believe they reflect honest and real concerns.

Unfortunately, the issues raised do not surprise me – they are what I have heard at every gathering (large, small or one on one) of social housing tenants facing or experiencing redevelopment. I heard it in Riverwood, Bonnyrigg, Minto, Claymore, and Ivanhoe. This is not to deny that there are also some tenants who want to move, in the hope of changing their overall circumstances.

What did surprise me was that FACS Housing and the Minister had not anticipated this response, and adjusted their usual announcement process accordingly. The public housing agency has been through this a number of times, and assures us over and over that they have learnt from their mistakes. 

The Minister did assure us at the meeting that he would make sure those affected in Waterloo would be treated sensitively, and be consulted at every step along the way. I am not yet cynical enough to believe that he was just ‘talking the talk’ and not prepared to ‘walk the walk’. That is because Minister Hazzard and Mr Vevers did make some commitments. He agreed that additional supports for tenants would be needed during this period. He agreed that with a local, annual turnover rate of between 8-9% of public housing tenants, those affected by redevelopment works could be rehoused within the area as works progressed. He indicated that he would personally hold regular, local consultations. And he said there would be no rush to relocate tenants. He even committed to answering questions raised at the meeting at a consultation he is to host this week.

So here at the TU we have put together a list to help all of us - tenants, FACS Housing, Minister Hazard, and community organisations - ‘walk the talk’, and thus increase the prospect of sensitive, appropriate and effective redevelopment. Collective learning from research commissioned by FACS Housing, built on consultations over a number of years with tenant groups and the non-government sector, informs the list:

- Acknowledge the strengths and history of the existing community;

- Progressively move people within the estate as new buildings are constructed;

- Undertake a social impact assessment to inform the best plans and processes for tenants and their communities;

- Fund additional supports and independent tenant advice while maintaining funding of existing services and supports;

- Include genuine community empowerment and involvement at appropriate levels;

- Don’t give undertakings that cannot be met;

- Make available past plans or reports on consultations, to enable tenants to participate in informed discussions;

- Make sure communication is clear, regular and takes place in different forms;

- Provide additional training and support to FACS Housing staff tasked with working as relocation officers. This training should include presentations from tenants who have lived through the experience of redevelopment in other areas;

- Undertake ongoing evaluation;

- Follow up and support tenants that have moved;

- Carefully consider allocations to ensure they are appropriate;

- Listen to tenants and treat them with respect! This sounds easy but is anything but if really taken seriously.

Similarly, research and past experiences have provided evidence on practices to avoid – worst practice principles, if you like. So on this note, be sure not to engage in:

- Tokenism in forming partnerships and building community involvement;

- Short-term 'quick fixes'. Good outcomes take time;

- Public representations and narratives of disadvantaged locations, which entrench the problem by exaggerating an area's dysfunction;

- Actions which merely displace the problem. Projects that merely move people to new locations do not solve problems of poverty and disadvantage.

Read more about what the experts say about best and worst practice in redevelopments here.

Social housing and its bold new future

Today the NSW Liberal Government has announced a new 10 year social housing strategy, Future Directions for Social Housing. The Sydney Morning Herald has called it "an historic decision to privatise public housing in New South Wales". We call it an incentive to fix the Residential Tenancies Act 2010.

It's true that one of the main thrusts of the strategy will be the redevelopment of estates, with all the uncertainty and anxiety that brings for tenants who start to wonder whose homes will be next to go... But it will also place an ambitious degree of faith in the private rental market to more or less "rescue" tenants from social housing.

Like the discussion paper that came before it, the strategy is based around three key pillars -

• More social housing
• More opportunities, support and incentives to avoid and/or leave social housing
• A better social housing experience

Under each of these, the Land & Housing Corporation and FACS Housing will be given a series of tasks.

More social housing means:

• the Land & Housing Corporation will increase their estate renewal and redevelopment activities. This will be "in partnership with the private sector" through the Communities Plus program. We'll be keeping our ear to the ground for details as each new development is announced, and making notes on our Clearing House blog. The strategy says "FACS will work closely with communities to avoid unnecessary disruption to tenants' lives". We certainly hope so.
• ownership or management of more properties will be transferred to community housing landlords. The strategy aims to increase the proportion of social housing owned or managed by the non-government sector to 35%, and will require community housing landlords to assist with the Land & Housing Corporation's relocation needs when redeveloping estates. They'll also be required to report on tenant outcomes according to a set of targets - we'll be keeping an eye out for those.
• the Government will be relying on proposed new funding models, such as the Social and Affordable Housing Fund and Social Impact Bonds - which means attempting to bring private finance into the construction of new and renewed social housing.
• further attempts at tackling "under-occupancy".

More opportunities, support and incentives to avoid and/or leave social housing means:

• Family and Community Services will "remove work disincentives" for public housing tenants. This includes revising policies that create work disincentives, and reviewing the rent setting model and eligibility criteria. This is really the good news.
• trying to improve educational and employment opportunities for social housing tenants. They'll do this through the allocations system - providing houses for people who can work or study in areas with better access to jobs and schools. It sounds like a good idea, but it's just as likely to create further residualisation and stigma for those who miss out. They'll also try to create new employment opportunities for social housing tenants through new repairs and maintenance contracts.
• introducing "Personal Support Plans" - where a "client" agrees to "realistic goals" in exchange for tailored supports and services. The architects of the Housing First model must be scratching their heads in wonder, and we're concerned about how these plans will interact with a residential tenancy agreement. What will happen to tenants who fail to achieve their goals? Will they lose their housing, as well as their tailored supports and services?
• increasing the budget for Private Rental Assistance products, to try and convince more tenants to try and survive in the expensive and chronically insecure private rental market (which the government considers a form of "independence") where they will not need to rely on social housing assistance.
• collaboration across the Whole of Government to better coordinate assistance. The problem is, FACS have forgotten to include NSW Fair Trading in the list of agencies they'd like to work with - even though they are in the midst of a review of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 and could work towards giving tenants greater stability, liveability and affordability in the private rental market.

A better social housing experience means:

• improving customer service and using more methods of communicating with tenants.
• implementing new repairs and maintenance contracts.
• mandatory evictions for tenants who get caught up in criminal activity.

It's a big plan - it reflects a high degree of ambition, for better or worse. It will present new opportunities as well as risk - particularly for public housing tenants, who will start to wonder just how secure their current tenancy is. But unless changes are made to the Residential Tenancies Act to give greater stability to tenants in the private rental market, the answer remains "comparatively so". Decamping to the private rental market should remain an option of last resort.

Most of all, this new strategy comes with a great big list of things to do. We'll be keeping a close eye on how FACS and the Land & Housing Corporation begin to work through its implementation, and how it progresses from here.

There is no one above us - Tenant Participation resources

“I feel good about myself because I’m doing something for the community. When you look how far we’ve got and how others have listened to us, it’s wonderful. I feel we’ve achieved things by talking to people. Once I would have thought I’m a nobody but now I know I can speak out … And you know what? You know we talk a lot about people ‘above us’, well, we have found out there is no one above us!” 

-Macarthur Animation Program participant

You may have noticed from other posts that the TU has a soft spot for tenants in Campbelltown.  It could be because our EO, Julie Foreman worked alongside some of the community for nearly 10 years before she came to us. Well, in May about 100 people joined together to celebrate a local and successful community education program. 

The celebration included the launch of two new resources about working collaborative with social housing tenants. Published by St Vincent de Paul, the resources tell the story of the ‘Macarthur Animation Project’
One of the books is the story of the innovative community program and the other is a training kit based on the lessons collectively learned as the project developed. One thing tenants consistently said was that they really felt they had something to say to workers and organisations who want to work with communities.

“The Story of the Animation Project” outlines what happened  – how community lunches, the use of art as a form of reflection and the gradual drawing together of a spirited group of women in Claymore started something which continues today, 18 years later. The initial success with the change of a bus route inspired a series of other initiatives across four public housing estates – a community laundromat and coffee shop, the campaign for a footbridge over the M5 freeway, Minto Kids Community Park, community celebrations, lobbying for public phones, resident action groups, bringing about tenant focused changes to public housing re-development policy, the recording and publishing of community histories and the development of training programs in community action and human rights. Its not just all the shiny good stuff either. You will also read how some community initiatives have petered out and the real challenges that are yet to be overcome.

The training kit goes further explaining the principles and values of the program.  However, it is not a simple how-to guide. If it was, it would contain just two words: respect and listen. Sounds simple and yet the workers involved in the program have had to constantly learn and re learn what these two words really mean in different situations. So simple to say, so hard to really put into action. So this kit is providing content, reflections and questions on how we all can continue to struggle to put these two words into action. And to imagine what our communities would be like if we did.

Participants in the project said "you know how they, [workers], talk about our communities needing capacity building well we reckon we've got something to say about workers capacity and how their capacity can be built” and that was the start of the kit.  To share some of the thinking, reflecting and struggles of workers and community members as they learnt together. And it invites others to think, reflect and change too.

The first Program Coordinator, the TU’s Julie Foreman said at the launch “I have learnt much from community members, volunteers and friends. I have learnt that the story of a community doesn't start when I or other workers enter a community, its history and development has gone before and will continue, I have learnt about the stereotypes and their real impact.  I have learnt that community work is about power -recognising it, owning it, analysing it and sharing it, I have learnt to ask not what can I teach but what can I learn. I have learnt about hope, generosity and resilience. I have learnt that if you truly want community change ask those most affected for the answers”.

So if you get a chance take a look at the publications, please do!

“Respect and Resilience: The story of the Animation Project 1998-2012”

“Being Real in Community Work: A community development training kit in the Animation tradition”