NSW Opposition's affordability pledge

NSW Labor announced a housing affordability package over the weekend. It's worth a look.

As reported in the SMH, the Oz, and ABC Online, the headline is that under a NSW Labor Government 25% of government owned land that is earmarked for residential development would be set aside for Affordable Housing. Additionally, 15% of new dwellings or floor space on "privately developed" land would be designated as Affordable Housing, "available for rental or sale to low- to moderate-income households."

As reported in the SMH and ABC Online, with comments attributed to NSW Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, the plan lacks detail. It is unclear just what is meant by "Affordable Housing", although the term does have a meaning in modern housing policy parlance. It generally refers to rental housing that is let at around 80% of the going market rate, and it is usually managed by a registered Community Housing landlord. It is not clear how Affordable Housing "for sale" would be determined, though we note the policy states Labor would "work closely with industry experts, including Community Housing Providers, to formulate the rules around this policy". That's good, but they could include tenants and prospective home buyers in that list of experts as well.

For his part, Minister Roberts says the plan is "totally flawed", and that the NSW Government has already created affordable housing. In comments to the ABC, he is reported to have said:

We are doing it incredibly successfully without destroying the value of peoples' properties, without actually going into the marketplace and providing a level of Government intervention that is no good for anyone.

Presumably he was referring to the Social and Affordable Housing Fund, under which the construction of 2,200 new properties was announced in early March. He might also be referring to the Communities Plus initiative, under which land owned by the Land and Housing Corporation - that's the public housing landlord in New South Wales - is to be "recycled". For the uninitiated, that means knocking down established communities in places like Redfern, Waterloo, Macquarie Park, Telopea and Riverwood, and replacing them with new, higher density neighbourhoods that will include both Social and Affordable Housing. But they'll include more dwellings for sale into the private market than anything else, because that's how this "recycling" model gets funded.

Ignoring the significant upheaval this causes tenants and residents within those communities, Minister Roberts might be right - that is one way to deliver Affordable Housing in parts of Sydney without destroying the city's property values. In fact, it seems designed to encourage further growth in the value of property, while carving out small tracts of affordability for a lucky few. To be clear, that is affordability relative to our extremely unaffordable housing market, as opposed to affordability by any real objective measure. That's good for property owners, but on its own it's not so good for tenants and would be home-buyers struggling to find something they can afford in the places they'd like to live. And it's really not good for the public housing tenants who value their properties in an entirely different way - by making homes and neighourhoods in the communities that are about to be destroyed.

In any event, the scale of Sydney's affordable housing crisis is such that a few thousand extra dwellings here and there won't really put much of a dent in it, even if we do rent some of them out a little more cheaply than the rest. What is needed is a clear and meaningful target for affordable housing to be included in new residential developments right across the city, if not across the state. We need a sustained effort to get more and more of it built with every new development that gets off the ground. On this note we'll give the NSW Labor policy a big thumbs up.

We'll be surprised and disappointed if the NSW Government comes out with a substantially different policy when it announces its own housing affordability package, as it has promised to do in the coming State Budget. Given the recent Federal Budget's focus on delivering Affordable Housing through the proposed National Housing Finance and Investment Scheme, and the reference to aggregate supply targets (including targets for social and affordable housing), residential land planning and zoning reforms, and inclusionary zoning arrangements in the proposed National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, the only real difference we're hoping to see in the Government's plan is a little more attention to detail.

Time will tell.

Ivanhoe Estate Tenant Group - Ryde Council's Volunteer Group of the Year, 2016

Today on the Brown Couch: former Ivanhoe Estate resident Marie Sillars talks about the strength of a community, the shock of relocation, and how to ensure all is not lost to "renewal".

***

My time with the Ivanhoe Estate Tenant Group Inc. started some 6 years ago and I am a Founder Member of the Group. We established a Community Centre (pictured) and started organising BBQs, meetings and getting involved in our community.

Four years ago we heard (on TV News) that Ivanhoe was to be demolished as it had gone past "its use by date" and very quickly we started to gather information, attend meetings, take part in Community Reference Group meetings and even became involved with a Parliamentary Committee on public housing. At the same time the group were running craft classes (we have knitted and crocheted scores of blankets, beanies, scarves etc. which will be donated to a homeless shelter & local hospital) computers for the elderly, breakfasts at the Centre, established a community garden (tenants were invited to take any herbs or veggies that they needed) and generally made ourselves busy with the day to day matters that a community needs. We had Oz Harvest for 2 years where we distributed up to 150 kilos of food on a Saturday afternoon and we had the greatest fun. Most of the Oz Harvest Committee were over the age of 60 and it was a great way to make sure that the elderly tenants had enough fruit, vegetables and groceries to keep them going until the next Saturday. Rain, hail and shine we worked our way through the food with an incredible energy for people of our age.

We knew the time was coming when the final decision would be made but somehow just kept working away trying not to think about the inevitable time when the FACS people would deliver the letters and we would then we would have to decide how we would deal with this. Late last year the letters were delivered and even though we knew it was coming the whole place went into shock and we were called to a meeting at the Community Centre where we were introduced to the officers who would become our Relocation Officers. It was an awful day and it had quite a negative effect upon the tenants, especially the elderly folk. We decided on that day that the Committee would go ahead "business as usual" and try hard to get through what was to become a difficult period. As Christmas at Ivanhoe came and went we all knew that this would probably be our last Christmas together as a group, and the atmosphere around the Centre changed. People were sad and a bit down and together with the Salvation Army on the Estate we tried very hard to keep people's spirits up and tried to make a positive side of the relocations.

As time went on and we were still attending meetings the interviews with our respective Relocation Officers were conducted and we were then told to wait as the Officers searched for places for us. As this has been happening tenants started to move away and so I contacted some people outside of the Estate to help establish a "Footprints" Committee to gather information, pictures and stories about the Estate so that when the new places are built, people there will know that there was a thriving, exciting community existing before. Ryde Council, Salvation Army, Macquarie University, FACS, and many of our wonderful supporters have come on board with this idea to create media, films, interviews and many other ways to show how a great Community CAN work and that Public Housing Tenants can work in a positive and intelligent way to come together and be proud of what they have achieved.

Two weeks ago I myself had to move and I am not very far away from the Ivanhoe Estate so I am able to keep craft classes happening on Mondays for those who are still there. The Committee who had worked so hard at Oz Harvest had started to move away also and we will all keep in touch in the future. As this Community fades away we are keen to let people know that through the Footprints Programme the Ivanhoe Committee will not be forgotten.

Last week (5th May 2016) some of the Committee attended a Volunteer of the Year Evening with Ryde Council and I was so very honoured to be nominated as Volunteer of the Year. I did not win but the Ivanhoe Estate Tenant Group DID win Volunteer Group of the Year 2016 and I have to say it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Even through our times of sadness it just shows that a community such as the Ivanhoe Estate can shine through, smile and move on to other communities. As they say "Onwards and Upwards" but in the end it has been a great achievement and one I will never forget!

Marie Sillars May 2016

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.

Holiday spoilers - who to call for tenancy advice during the break?

That's it from us for another year - we'll be back in 2016 with more on the review of the Residential Tenancies Act and the inquiry into the management of public housing repairs and maintenance contracts. We'll also be keeping an eye on developments concerning the social housing portfolio over on our other blog the Clearing House.

The Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services will also be taking a break, with the majority of services closing between December 21st 2015 and January 4th 2016. Some services will be closed for longer, pushing out until as late as January 11th in some areas.

Battling the dark side on your own - how does Finn make it look so easy?

But because the forces of darkness don't always take a break, we'll be running our annual Christmas Hotline until Wednesday January 6th. An experienced advocate will be available each weekday, excluding public holidays, between 10:00am & 1:00pm and 2:00pm & 5:00pm.

If you need advice about a tenancy dispute during this time, give us a call.

Tenants' Union of NSW Xmas Hotline

 phone (02) 8117 3750 

or 

1800 251 101

Millers Point: three new homes for every property sold?

Last night a second government owned property in Millers Point was sold. Family and Community Services Minister Gabrielle Upton reports it sold for $2.56 million. This follows the first property sale price of $1.911million.

Minister Upton says for each property sold in Millers Point, the government's public housing portfolio could be increased by three. But not so long ago the Secretary of FACS said the current State Budget would deliver a 'line-ball' increase in social housing supply this financial year.

More recently, the Minister herself told the Budget Estimates committee (see page 5 of the transcript) that for every million dollars her department spends on its housing portfolio, only $190,000 – 19 per cent – goes towards new housing. Of the rest, $340,000 is used for 'improvements' (for example, kitchen upgrades), and $470,000 goes to repairs and maintenance.

Now, we're all for spending money on overdue repairs and maintenance of the government's housing portfolio, but it's a bit rich to sell other people's homes in order to pay for it. Especially when much-needed growth of the portfolio is implied, to justify the sales.

Anyway, on the basis of Minister's Estimates statement, we thought we'd see what we could do with the $4.471 million raised so far. Within the confines of the Budget, of course...

First things first, we'll have to put about $1.52million aside for 'improvements', and a further $2.1 million aside for repairs and maintenance. This leaves us with just under $850,000 to tip into the 'new housing' bucket.

$800,000 will get you a pretty swish flat in Sydney, leaving change for stamp duties, legal costs and perhaps even some champagne to celebrate.

Cunningham St Sydney - from www.realestate.com.au

Or, if you wanted to replace the two Millers Point properties with a pair of dwellings, you can get a nice little studio in the same complex...

Cunningham St Sydney - from www.realestate.com.au

... a spacious walk up in Parramatta...

Early Street Parramatta - from www.realestate.com.au

... or a respectable family home in Campbelltown, for around $400,000.

Lindesay Street Campbelltown - from www.realestate.com.au

Of course, if you wanted to replace the two Millers Point properties with six homes in Sydney, you'd be hard pressed to do it. You'd be looking at around $140,000 per home. A quick look at the real estate pages tell us you can still find homes at such low, low prices, but nowhere near Sydney. You'd have to look in places like Deniliquin, South Grafton, Dubbo, Jindabyne, Albury and Orange.

Which leaves us with two possible conclusions to ponder: either the money will be used to buy houses in regional NSW, or more of our existing metropolitan public housing will be demolished so that we can 'replace' the Millers Point homes on land already owned by the NSW Government.

Help us keep track of what's happening with public housing sales and estate redevelopment. Check out our Clearing House blog for more information.

Launching 'Clearing House' – the TU's social housing estate redevelopment blog

Today the Tenants' Union launches a second blog. Clearing House is the TU's record of what's going on in social housing estate redevelopments.

 As we say on the new blog:

Over the last 10 years, estate redevelopment has become an increasingly big thing for Housing NSW – and for the many tenants who have to live with it. Looking ahead, it's only going to get bigger.

When news breaks that your estate is to be redeveloped, it can be hard to know where you stand. Should I go? Should I come back? Should the redevelopment happen at all? Plans get made and revised. People come and go. Work starts and stops. Promises may be made, and broken.

The purpose of this blog is to try to keep track of what's happening with estate redevelopment, on the ground in each estate. We'll try to log announcements, events and changes of plans as they happen, and link back to earlier information so you can see how things may have changed.

In doing so, we'll be taking our information from official public statements and documents by Housing NSW, the NSW Land and Housing Corporation, and the responsible Ministers, from media reports, and from tenants and workers on estates – so please tell us what you know in the comments or by email.

Hopefully all of us – tenants, advocates, housing officers, Ministers! – will become a bit better informed, and a bit wiser, about how social housing estate redevelopment is actually going, and how it might go better. 

Clearing House starts its round up of developments with posts on Millers Point and Riverwood North, with more to come.

Your regular Brown Couch service will continue as usual.