4 April 2008

Death of a Slum, at last - CT 4 April, 2008

| Headbonius
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Front page of the Canberra Times, 04 April, reports the expected sale of Fraser Court in Kingston. The article makes much of the crime that used to happen there – and rightly so. What has astounded me is the insightful comment made by Mr David Collett, Dept of Disability, Housing and Comm Services assessment managing director. He is quoted as saying the money will be used in a “Salt and Pepper” type arrangement where the Department will use money from the sale to buy dispersed units/houses instead of lumping them all together because – and here’s the clincher;

“We find there are significant problems when public housing tenants are grouped together in the one location”

Well, No shit sherlock.

I wonder how this bloke got his job. Did he enthrall the interview panel with pearls of wisdom like this? God F*cken help us all.

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Northbourne Flats….designed and built by professionals. Leap ahead to the year 2050 when someone will drive down the GDE and say “designed and built by professionals”. And on public housing .. here is a prediction for a big big money grab for Stanhope: ACT Housing owns the Ainslie Village site…you can see the lake from nearly anywhere on the site; it is a very short walk to the city and bounded(?)by parkland. Imagine apartment towers with views to the hills and and as far south as ya can look. Those acres are worth many millions. The contracts to run it and house the less fortunate are very short and all expire in less than a couple of years…mmmm?! Won’t put those folk out the street you say… remember Burnie Court and the question to boss of Housing about “where will they all go?” he answered: “We have thousands on the waiting list who are all living somewhere…” If they will do it the Fraser Court….

Timberwolf658:43 pm 09 Apr 08

Headbonius said :

Interesting take on things spoonbill. But what would be wrong with treating the bad ones the way the roos were planned to be treated?

That cracked me up Headbonius …good call!

Interesting take on things spoonbill. But what would be wrong with treating the bad ones the way the roos were planned to be treated?

Time for all the 50’s and 60’s to go. The entrance to the city will look a lot tidiew when they are gone.

Yep, good to see the CT lightening up a bit. More of this, please, CT.

Skidbladnir said :

I find that caption to a man scoping one of residences while holding a crowbar to be the single most amusing thing I’ve seen in the CT for months.

Open house: News of the impending sale of Fraser Court appeared to get out early yesterday, with one man turning up for a private inspection.

Totally agree Skidbladnir, I chuckled over that for ages. Nicee to see the CT can have a joke occassionally.

Maybe the public housing tenants can be translocated interstate with the Belconnen roos.

Most of ours were built in the 60s too weren’t they?

And they have at least given up on building more.

and we are lucky that even Northbourne Flats are smaller than the british mostrosities, and the scary Fitzroy Flats in Melbourne – they are enormous.

But Sepi, they haven’t given up on it. Bega Court, Kanagra Court, Lyneham Flats, Northbourne Flats, Stuart Flats the list goes on. Ther is nothing wrong with the Govt getting rid of Fraser Court or any others for that matter. It does raise issues about financial cost though. Imagine giving the great unwashed their own homes. FO, I won’t be paying for that.. You missed my point. I was saying……WELL DER! to his comment designed to make himself look smart and stating what governments have known for ages.

Complex problem, always has been, always will be.

Well then you should be applauding the council guy for saying out loud that large groups of govvie housing don’t work. And the Stanhope govt for giving up on this ‘cheap housing ‘ policy.

And I dont’ think the Stanhope govt built Fraser court.

Dear Sepi, Fraser Court was built at a time when the effects of slums from a social view were well known. FFS it has been known since the industrial revolution. It is just that it is cheaper to build shitbox housing in close proximity to eachother, fill it with (generally speaking) shit and then stand back and watch what happens. Putting a freaking playground on the roof will not change a slum or make for happy,smiling children.

The Stanhope government’s “Sunshine and Lollypop” approach to social engineering make want to puke.

If the answer is so obvious, then why did they build these huge blocks of govvie housing flats?

anyone can be an expert in hindsight.

I find that caption to a man scoping one of residences while holding a crowbar to be the single most amusing thing I’ve seen in the CT for months.

Open house: News of the impending sale of Fraser Court appeared to get out early yesterday, with one man turning up for a private inspection.

Dear Justbands, sorry if I wasn’t as impressed as you were with his knowledge and insight into a topic to which the answer has been known for at least 40 years and possibly longer. Moron.

DarkLadyWolfMother11:43 am 04 Apr 08

I’m amazed he got hired given he obviously has some common sense.

I guess they get through the net every now and again…

Why should the guy be slammed for coming out and saying something that needed to be said? Should he be all PC and pretend there isn’t a problem when you ghetto-ise these people? Dismantling other such properties and spreading public housing across the territory is plainly the way to go. And the gentleman quoted obviously recognises this.

captainwhorebags9:38 am 04 Apr 08

FC – my belief is that it’s easier to deal with the one dodgy house in a street than have an entire area turned into a ghetto.

But then again, I live in Banks, so I’m used to drive by shootings, nightly helicopter searches and police roadblocks.

I hope they don’t stop there….they should also knock down the public housing ghettos around Civic, Ainslie Village, near the Red Hill Shops, near Manuka, at Griffith etc. These plots could be sold for millions with some of the proceeds spent on building/buying pubic housing across the ACT.

Great, so instead of having anti social behaviour in one area, we can now spread it out in interfere with as many law abiding citizens home environments as possible.

No shit sherlock yourself…what did you expect him to say? He would have had the question put to him, so he answered it. The fact that it’s obvious does not make him stupid for saying it.

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