NESB Housing Taskforce NSW

NESB Housing Taskforce minutes

Wednesday 6 June 2007

Attendance

Izeta Zecevic, Jasmina Bajraktarevic, Mary Perkins, Cheryl Webster, Nicole Schlegerer, Mark Lack, Maureen Kingshott

Chair

Mary Perkins

Minute taker

Maureen Kingshott (Jasmina next time, Cheryl the time after that)

Review of notes from last meeting

• February minutes noted.
• Cancellation of April meeting noted (only a couple of people turned up - probably too close to Easter holiday).

Discussion items

Difficulties getting access to the private rental market

We had a long discussion about this. Issues raised included:

• Resolve FM is responsible for finding short term accommodation for refugees arriving in NSW (1300 families a year) but there aren’t enough rental properties available for longer term housing. This leads to:
  • increasingly substandard housing, with repairs not getting done (if tenants complain landlords just rent the property to someone else)
  • rent auctions – where properties are advertised for a particular rental but prospective tenants offer more to secure the property
  • people with disability (e.g. physical or mental illness) having to live in inaccessible/unsuitable properties
  • Resolve FM is supposed to provide 4 weeks accommodation for newly arrived refugees but this is blowing out to an average of 87 days (3 times the intended length)
• Commonwealth 2007-8 budget will provide every new humanitarian entrant with additional assistance: first month’s utilities and public transport fares free
• Most refugees have difficulty settling during the first 5 years: marriages break down, intergenerational conflict within families, housing is a burning issue which adds fuel to those difficulties

Actions:

1. Visit Linda Burney (NSW Minister for Consumer Affairs) about the lack of protection for people renting properties at the lower end of the market

• the protections in the Residential Tenancies Act are ok in theory but unenforceable in practice
• why isn’t there a set of minimum standards for rental housing

2. Link in with a strategy for longer term housing for refugees (5-10 years) to lobby for the federal election later this year. Parramatta Baulkham Hills Migrant Resource Centre is working on finding solutions for a longer term housing strategy.

Reports

1. Southern Sudan: Cheryl reported on her recent visit. Her photos indicated current conditions (including housing) in Juba (the biggest and most developed town in Southern Sudan) and some of the difficulties in getting agreed development projects off the ground.

2. Meeting between task force members and the Department of Housing: Maureen reported on the 9 May meeting. This regular meeting is now called the ‘DOH Multicultural Forum’, with agreed terms of reference, and the Department is responsible for and emailing notice of the meetings.

Issues discussed included:

• a presentation from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) about high cost credit, which takes various forms in NSW
  • interest only for 5 years (principal has to be repaid after 5 years)
    promissory notes
  • short-term interest free periods – these are usually offset by application fees and establishment fees
  • ‘no interest’ loans – these may have no interest but the administrative fees, account keeping fees and loan establishment fees together can be very high
  • the cap on interest rates in NSW is 48% so the total fees and charges on ‘no interest’ or ‘short-term interest free period’ loans can’t be higher than a 48% interest rate would be
  • door to sales cooling off periods only apply if the sale involves credit – if you sign up and pay cash (don’t borrow anything) you’re stuck with the purchase – OFT is working with the NSW Energy and Water Ombudsman (EWON) about people signing contracts with door to door sales people
  • motor vehicle finance brokers target low income earners and new communities – OFT is investigating them
  • OFT have a multicultural officer and do information programs on ethnic radio – have just started work on a campaign on credit
  • OFT community liaison officers work with ethnic communities, Migrant Resource Centres, interagencies
  • OFT compliance section is looking at credit/mortgage broking scams within particular communities
  • OFT has piloted a new financial literacy program with Arabic speaking communities
  • Consumer Credit legal Centre website has a useful question and answer section
• general discussion about how hard it is to find rental accommodation in Sydney for newly arrived refugees
  • ACL is the lead agency in the consortium providing Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Scheme (IHSS) services for up to 12 months after refugees arrive, e.g. linking people to health, welfare, education, STARTTS, Rentstart, etc and matching volunteers to people newly arrived (but note that where a person in Australia proposes a person/family for special humanitarian entry, the proposer is expected to assist when they arrive)
  • Resolve FM is the consortium partner responsible for providing refugees with housing for their first 4 weeks in NSW – when the consortium put in a bid for the contract the housing vacancy rate in Sydney was 4.5% but now it’s only 1%
  • Resolve FM and refugees are having difficulty finding longer term housing – impossible to find affordable rental properties – people are highly dependent on Rentstart – accommodation for single people is virtually non-existent in Sydney ($160 a week is Dept’s cut off point but you can’t find anywhere for that) – but tenancy guarantee is an added benefit when putting in a tenancy application
  • Dept of Housing has strict guidelines about number of people allowed to share bedrooms – but refugees who are used to whole families sharing one room find this very difficult to understand –– many people don’t want to pay the extra rent required for extra bedrooms
  • the Australian Cultural Orientation program (AUSCO) training overseas for refugees and humanitarian entrants creates huge wrong expectations about living conditions, housing affordability and refugee entitlements in Australia – unrealistic housing expectations are always a problem – there is a new AUSCO information session DVD being launched on 21 June at ACL
• presentation by Debbie Georgeopoulos (Acting Director Community Regeneration Unit, Department of Housing)
• 1/3 of public housing is in large estates – this has led to a community regeneration project planned for 6 areas which have a total of 18 public housing estates: Claymore; Macquarie Fields; Mt Druitt; Bateau Bay/ Tumbi Umbi; Dubbo; Bathurst/Orange
• In ‘Building Stronger Communities’ (January 2007) the NSW Government announced $66 million for regenerating these 6 areas over the next 4 years
• Dept has learnt lots in the past 10 years about how not to do it
• need to identify what kinds of support tenants need from the Dept and other
• emphasis is on working with residents to make the estates work better for them – physical regeneration; sustainable tenancies; sport and recreation; tenancy management; support services – including formal cross-agency agreements

Action:

Mary will write to the Minister for Immigration asking to see the AUSCO DVD because of concerns raised about the AUSCO overseas information program for refugees and humanitarian immigrants to Australia (including the large number of people who settle in Sydney) and the unrealistic expectations it raises about affordability of housing in Sydney.

3. Refugee Support Network (RSN): a longstanding item on the Task Force agenda is about the development of a refugee housing strategy by the RSN and presenting it to the Prime Minister and Immigration Minister. Task Force members are not clear about progress on this. We understand that the RSN has a meeting scheduled for 19 June to discuss a paper in response to the Community Relations Commission’s paper about settlement of African community members in NSW. The RSN is still discussing that paper.

Actions:

1. Task Force members agreed that we need to be linked in with whatever work the RSN may be doing on social housing issues but that if they’re not working on it we should drop this particular item (i.e. RSN’s housing strategy) from our agenda.

2. STARTTS has a new policy officer due to start soon (pardon the pun). Housing will be one issue for her and she may be able to draft a policy statement about social housing and refugees.

4. Education and Training

4.1 Department of Housing

Mary mapped out a workshop program for public housing. Shelter can run it towards the end of the year in conjunction with the Dept.

New Settlement Grants Program (SGP – formerly CSSS – a prize for anyone who can keep up with the acronyms in this field) workers are due to start work later this year. Department of Immigration and Citizenship (note: DIAC not DIC – they prefer it that way) provides/coordinates their training. We can ask DIAC to include housing in the training.

4.2 Advocacy Skills; Writing Letters…Getting Results (MDAA)

The Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association (MDAA) has drafted 2 training sessions; the first on general skills in advocating for clients; the second on writing effective letters to get what the client wants/needs. We still need to get some case studies specifically about the public/social housing system for both training sessions:

• how does housing impact on a person’s mental health
• how does mental health affect a person’s housing needs
• what does ‘complex housing need’ mean
• getting/ providing ongoing support after a person gets housing

Suggestions:

• Check Tenants Union training – Mary will contact the chairperson
• Talk to Joy Connor at Shelter about case studies
• Work out examples and set dates:
  • Advocacy skills: aim for a date between 10th-18th September
  • Letter Writing: 8 November

Other business

Jasmina asked whether the Department of Housing has asked anyone else to provide Occupational Therapist reports for psychiatric disability or a case plan. General answer was ‘no…not yet’.

Next meeting

Wednesday 8 August 2007 – 2.30 pm at AVCL: 3 Mary Street, Auburn

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Updated 23-Jul-2007