By Sandy Eager
SYDNEY — A Housing Day of Action organised by the Coalition to Save Public and Community Housing (CSPCH) will be held on July 18. The action is in response to the federal government's recently announced plans to massively cut funding for public and community housing, and force state governments to charge market rents for this housing.
The Commonwealth State Housing Agreement was instituted by the Chifley Labor government in 1946. The agreement, which aimed to provide an equitable housing system, ensured that Commonwealth grants were tied to specific state programs, including the maintenance and supply of public and community housing and the funding of supported accommodation services such as refuges.
The Howard government has shifted the emphasis in housing provision to a system of rent assistance administered through the social security system.
The former Commonwealth Department of Housing and Regional Development has now been split; the housing assistance unit has been relocated to the Department of Social Security. Only strong opposition from employees in the unit prevented the section from being renamed Welfare Housing. The move to Social Security dramatically reinforces the welfare mentality which has been increasingly pervading the public housing system.
In usual Howard fashion, no-one in the unit concerned has been informed, let alone consulted, about how the new system will operate. All staff know is that housing assistance will largely be provided through a system of market rental subsidies, provided through the existing system of rent assistance attached to social security payments. This is despite the findings of the Industry Commission that a rent assistance system is the least cost effective form of housing assistance in the long term, and on many counts. Short-term savings, it says, will be rapidly transferred into higher costs to the health, community services and criminal justice systems.
'Welfare' housing
This change has major implications in terms of eligibility for payments. People on low incomes with work may no longer be eligible for housing assistance because they do not access the social security system. In an increasingly deregulated labour market, this will affect more and more workers, as well as impacting on many others not eligible for existing social security payments (including youth and those on Austudy, if Austudy still exists).
Since the receipt of benefits will become the only way, theoretically, to obtain low-income housing, the combined effect of these changes and the Howard government's two-year waiting period before new migrants can receive most social security payments will exclude almost all new migrants from public housing access.
A further concern in the context of the Coalition government's brutal cost-cutting is that the Department of Housing may be forced to sell off quality, well-located (more valuable) stock, retaining only poor public housing in less desirable areas with fewer services. Even with 90,000 people currently on the public housing waiting list, there is no guarantee that the income from these sales will be used to purchase new housing stock.
A major concern with the new public housing system is the low level of assistance to be provided. The federal Coalition has made no guarantee that it will keep its pre-election promise that no existing public tenant will be disadvantaged by the changes, and that no-one will be paying more than 25% of their income on rent.
Evidence from other countries which have implemented similar public housing systems indicates that the rent paid by public housing tenants is likely to increase to the point where they can no longer afford their existing housing. After a similar system of rent assistance was introduced in New Zealand, 20,000 people left public housing because they no longer could afford it.
The idea that a few more dollars in people's hands will guarantee them access to affordable housing is fraught with impossibilities. There are currently zero vacancy rates for private rental properties in many parts of Sydney. There is also no effective system of regulation to ensure the retention or supply of low-cost housing, and private rents are sure to continue to increase, especially with the approach of the Olympics.
Many low-cost boarding houses have already been converted to back-packer accommodation. The Olympics Social Impacts Advisory Committee has only just been set up, at least two years too late, and it is not yet certain that it will push for any form of rent regulation. At this stage, there has only been vague talk from the state government about capping hotel rates during the year leading up to and including the Olympics. It is likely that the cap will apply only to three to five star hotels, therefore providing no security to long-term residents of low-cost hotels.
Discrimination
The discrimination experienced by people serviced through the social security system is very real. Public housing workers say that some real estate agents already charge higher bonds for people approaching them with bond money received under the Department of Housing's Temporary Assistance Scheme. A similar system of rent assistance in England has resulted in landlords refusing to house recipients of benefits at all.
The changes are of extra concern to people who are already discriminated against in the private rental market, including young people and those who have difficulty negotiating leases on the private rental market. Security of tenure in the private rental market has always been a key issue, along with the standard of accommodation and the difficulties many tenants have getting maintenance work carried out.
The untying of funding to supported accommodation, including refuges, may mean that services have to rely on tenuous sources of rental income from poor clients to cover their operating costs. Only the larger services, including those run by charitable organisations which lower their running costs by using volunteer labour and which collect donations, could survive under these conditions. Smaller services for smaller client groups (including Aboriginal services, services for migrant women and women's drug and alcohol services) may be forced to close down.
A related concern is the potential for charitable, often religious, organisations which provide housing to discriminate against people who do not abide by their approved lifestyle. The effect of shifting social programs to church-based groups is already evident in the hospital system, where these groups are intending to exert moralistic control over services in the area of women's health in particular.
Stop the attacks
There is now no funding allocated for the construction of new public and community housing. This means that 3000 planned and much-needed dwellings will not be constructed. The resulting loss of full- and part-time jobs is estimated to be around 4000. No money is available for essential support workers and/or training.
Cuts to the community housing program, including cooperative housing and housing associations which allow tenants more control over housing design and management, mean that the proposed 1623 new dwellings have been cut to 388. A youth-targeted community housing program to provide 246 new dwellings has been cut completely.
The Aboriginal housing program, which was supposed to run for two years and included employment programs, has now been guaranteed funding for only one year. The housing and employment projects which were to result in an additional 122 dwellings will also go, with the construction of only 43 dwellings now possible. These cuts will impact most severely on rural and remote areas.
These attacks must be stopped. That means putting pressure on the federal government before it brings down the next budget. For more information about the Housing Day of Action, contact the CSPCH on (02) 267 5733. In addition, a national day of action to protest against the government's proposed cuts to all public services will be held on August 19. Many protesters will be joining the cavalcade to Canberra that day, and supporters of public and community housing are urged to participate. For more information about trains and buses to the protest action, phone Michael Gadiel at Trades Hall in Sydney, (02) 264 1691.