MyHousing Online - public housing goes digital

It’s taken a while but FACS Housing is catching up with the 21st century and are getting more of their services and forms online. At the end of October they launched MyHousing, a ‘suite of online services’ that mean people can now go online 24/7 to:

• apply for housing 
• manage their accounts (rent and utilities) 
• pay accounts 
• and request repairs (lodge non urgent maintenance requests). 

You enter MyHousing via the front page of FACS Housing’s website. The ‘look’ of it is reasonably familiar, with the main interface a little bit reminiscent of the myGov portal - though transitions through to specific pages from the initial interface are a little clunky. The ‘Accounts and Information’ pages follow the same design style and logic as Centrelink’s online self service portal. Importantly – because just over 40% of public housing tenants reported no internet connection in their homes in the 2011 Census (ABS 2011) – MyHousing is generally mobile friendly.

Since MyHousing launched on the 31st of October it has had a fair bit of traffic. Over 1000 online housing applications have been submitted, and another 500 are ‘in progress’. Just over 400 clients have registered to access and manage their accounts. Most (80% of visitors) have been looking at ‘Accounts and Information’ to view their rent ledger or utilities accounts, but many (50% of visitors) are also taking the opportunity to update their current contact details. Some have already made use of the ‘e-payments’ facility where you can make rent, water and other payments online with BPAY and internet payments.

Of course you can still do all of these things in real life at a local office. Payment of rent and utilities or other debts can still be done at Service NSW offices. And maintenance requests, general enquiries and - since the middle of this year - applications for housing can all be done over the phone.

FACS reports that the feedback they’ve received from users about MyHousing has been good. Users have told them the online application form is easy to use and that they’ve had a positive experience on the Accounts Information page. The TU has also heard from tenants that the accounts information, and in particular the rent ledger available online, is much clearer than the paper version tenants generally receive (you can actually tell if you are in credit or arrears - which is useful!).

And there is more to come. Eventually all Housing forms will go online, and additional online ‘services’ will be added. FACS is also looking into developing a mobile ‘app’ with a range of functions that could include things like sending reminders or alerts, providing updates on the progress of applications, linking applicants to Link2Home and temporary accommodation, updating info, and repairs requests.

We’re glad to see that FACS is moving in this direction – and that the team behind the online upgrades seem genuinely committed to design that is ‘fit for purpose’ and makes life easier for people engaging with FACS Housing’s various processes. They’ve reached out and have been engaging with community groups from the sector, and have also said they are keen to hear feedback from tenants – current and future.

If you’re a tenant in social housing or have recently applied for housing (or you’re an advocate or worker and have assisted someone who has used MyHousing) we’d love to hear what you think …

Does complaining make a difference?

Last week Fair Trading's Complaints Register was launched and the first months data is available. Unsurprisingly, four of the top 10 most complained about businesses are real estate agencies and their franchises. Those 4 companies shared 69 complaints about tenancy management, which was 21% of the complaints made about the 20 businesses on the register. Only the wide ranging "retail" category had more, covering computers to baby products across 8 businesses.

But what does this tell us about the impact of making a complaint to Fair Trading in New South Wales? We've had a look at the enforcement actions taken and total complaints made over the last year, which are also published by Fair Trading. We've had to make some broad assumptions in order to make the two lists comparable - enforcement actions are expressed as belonging to particular pieces of legislation, where complaints are categorised by complaint topic. For instance, there is some potential overlap between the two - a real estate agent misleading a tenant might fall under the Australia Consumer Law as well as the Residential Tenancies Act, and therefore could go under both Consumer and Tenancy topics below.  You can scroll over each column to see how we've categorised complaints and enforcement action.

Although tenancy and consumer issues are two of the most complained about topics, they receive much less attention when it comes to compliance and law enforcement.

The lion's share of compliance action by Fair Trading NSW is carried out in relation to either the Property, Stock and Business Agents Act (which we have labelled Property) or the three laws relating to trades - the Home Building Act, Plumbing and Drainage Act and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act. Despite only taking up 7% of the complaints made to Fair Trading over the year, they made up 70% of the enforcement action. Conversely, tenancy made up 9% of all complaints to Fair Trading, but only 0.25% of enforcement.

One way of explaining this gap is that there are different methods to deal with different kinds of complaint. For instance the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal is the primary way for tenants to address their issues with landlords and, by extension, real estate agents. Unfortunately, the Civil and Administrative Tribunal hasn't been publishing its annual statistics like its predecessor the Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal did, and it misses much of the detail. The Tribunal's 2015-16 report has not been published yet but in 2014-15 we know that 58,360 applications were made concerning these topic areas (and others) and that more than three quarters (46,351) were about renting. What we don't know is who made those applications - but from historic data we know about 85% of Tribunal applications are made by landlords. So perhaps roughly 7,000 applications are made by tenants each year. This exceeds the 4,500 complaints made by tenants to Fair Trading, and dwarfs the 2 enforcement actions taken in relation to the Residential Tenancies Act.

This suggests to us that some people are expected to enforce the law themselves, and some can expect government will enforce the law on their behalf. The difference, it seems, is whether or not you are a renter.

We encourage tenants to make complaints, even if enforcement action is pretty thin on the ground. At the very least, complaints make Government agencies directly aware of the issues that people face. Fair Trading can use their complaints data to help them understand these issues and relate it to their public policy work, including current work around reforming the Residential Tenancies Act.

You can find sample letters that can help with writing complaints to Fair Trading at this link: here.

Reaching tenants with other languages

Ensuring everyone knows their tenancy rights is very important to us. With funding from the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW last year we released a spiffy new set of tenants’ rights factsheets translated into nine community languages that are common amongst renters in NSW.

The new factsheets can be found at the Tenants’ NSW website, right on the front page in the left most column. You can jump directly to your community language of choice and view an html version of the information or download a pdf copy.

If you or anyone you know wants to know about their rights and obligations as a renter in NSW and can read one of the following languages:

• Arabic
• Chinese (simplified)
• Chinese (traditional)
• Farsi
• Japanese
• Korean
• Spanish
• Thai
• Vietnamese

Why not download a factsheet and give have a look!

Tenants' advice over the holidays

As we count down to the end of the year on the Brown Couch, many of our friends and colleagues from the Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services (TAAS) have already loaded up the caravan and are on their way to a well earned break.

But don't worry - they'll all be back in early 2013, refreshed and ready to lend their expertise to tenants in need of a tip.

If you run into trouble in the meantime, and you need to know your rights, there will still be a couple of options available.

First, there's the Tenants' Rights Factsheets on the TAAS website.

Or, for more detailed information, you can access the Tenants Rights Manual online.

Then there's a limited Christmas Hotline, for urgent matters that just can't wait -

8117 3750

or

1800 251 101

We sincerely hope you don't need to make use of any of these services.

****

That's it from the Brown Couch for 2012 – a year to remember. It was, of course, the centenary of the New South Wales public housing system. We commemorated this with a series of posts that presented a potted history of the system, occasionally reflected in the goings-on of the day. And what, you may ask, did Housing NSW have to say on this most significant of anniversaries?

(Crickets!)

Nothing. Not a word. It should have. Many workers and tenants over the last hundred years have put a lot into public housing, and a centenary is an appropriate point at which to acknowledge it. And to forget the history of the system is to fail to understand all the dimensions of our present housing problems, and how things may be done differently and better in the future. (By the way, see how Victoria is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the public housing system there.)

This year we also had news that the NSW State Government proposes to repeal the 1948 Act, so upwards of 600 elderly tenants might worry if this is the last Christmas they'll spend in what have been their homes of many years. More happily, this year also saw long overdue law reform for boarding houses, and boarding house residents can look forward to having decent occupancy agreements and access to dispute resolution early in 2013. Hopefully other marginal renters won't have to wait much longer to be extended such a reasonable measure of justice too.

See you next year. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season.

****

TAAS closure dates
Blue Mountains	24 December - 1 January
Central Coast	19 December - 4 January
Eastern Sydney	20 December - 7 January
Hunter Valley	21 December - 1 January
Illawarra & South Coast	24 December - 4 January
Inner Sydney	24 December - 4 January
Inner Western Sydney	24 December - 9 January
Mid Coast	24 December - 1 January
New England & Western NSW	24 December - 4 January
Northern Rivers	21 December - 9 January
Northern Sydney	24 December - 2 January
Southern Sydney	21 December - 4 January
South Western NSW	24 December - 1 January
South Western Sydney	24 December - 2 January
Western Sydney	24 December - 1 January
Koori TAAS closure dates
Greater Sydney	21 December - 4 January
North & North Western NSW	21 December - 9 January
Southern NSW	21 December - 4 January
Western NSW	21 December - 4 January
Resourcing body closure dates
Dtarrawarra	21 December - 2 January
Parks & Village Service	24 December - 1 January
Older Persons’ Tenants’ Service	24 December - 1 January
Tenants’ Union	24 December - 2 January