RiotACT brings down another slumlord!

Now let me get this straight,
5 “Boarding” houses,
+ approximately 20 people per house,
= 100 people out on the street??

Last night they had 30 people with out a place to live being intervied for emercency housing at gungalin. The goverment decided by 9pm that it was just to late at night to do anything so they booked them all into the F1 motel for 2 days. Now im just waiting for word that the F1 will be closed down as well……

arescarti42 said :

I love the way Stanhope takes the high and mighty position about what a terrible person the land lord is and how he must be brought to justice, when as far as I can see, the only reason that people would chose to live in such a place is because the government is doing such a shitty job at making shelter, a fundamental human need, adequately available to everyone.

A very good point.

This is a direct result of the army of idiots who run Canberra having the genius idea of pricing postage-stamp-sized bits of sheep paddock at $300,000 a pop.

+10 arescarti
+50 beh1972

I will be voting Green this election because Stanhope and his bunch have no idea at all on what to do about housing. Releasing land in the middle of nowhere is one thing, but it’s the easiest of all possible options. Why not act like a proper Labour government and do the following:

– actually buy some land in locations near shops/schools/transport and build (with the help of the new Government Architect) some decent medium to high density housing. Compensate the owners of existing houses handsomely. You can then use it either as public housing, or sell it to the people who need it the most (so it doesn’t simply get bought up by the wealthy and we avoid the cycle starting again).

– pass a law that changes the zoning when a house is sold in well-developed suburbs from low-density residential to higher density. Make it the default option so that developers and others have the confidence to invest.

– pass other laws which state a medium-density development has to have a certain % of different sizes of house, e.g 1,2,3, and 4 bedroom places on offer. Probably more of the first two given our transient population.

– on the energy efficiency front, give landlords 4 years to bring their houses up to an EER of 5. If not, send in the bulldozers. That should concentrate a few minds into retrofitting and if not, well, guess what? We’ll see much of Canberra’s sub-standard housing stock up for sale very quickly. In combination with the other laws mentioned above, we should see better outcomes pretty quickly.

– tell the NIMBY’s to get stuffed. They will carry on anyhow, no matter what decision is made, so you may as well grow some balls, and press ahead with reforms our housing market desperately needs.

I can’t say that I am surprised, with absolutely no affordable rental accommodation in the ACT (<$200/wk) anymore.

Heaven help anyone that is a renter and is introverted to the point where they *gasp* need their own personal space. There's a psychological tsunami brewing in the region.

Shame on you, Jon Stanhope, for letting the rental market get so top-heavy in the first place.

Homeless teenagers are being housed in refuges in Cooma and Yass and getting buses or being driven by welfare workers to and from Canberra each day to keep up with their education or to meet other legal requirements. Or else they couch surf. Families are living in slums. Men and Women are sleeping in their cars so they can afford to get a cheap motel room for the weekends they get to spend with their kids who live with the other parent.

Woeful situation.

If Mr Stanhope wants to really help renters, how about getting mandatory EERs for all rental properties being advertised? Currently, if the house hasn’t been sold since 1999 they need to advertise one

Then nextime I wont have to compete with 30 other people for the honour of renting an EER0 house – built in 1996

How can Stanhope find accommadation when people are turned away from shelters?

Maybe they were incredibly extroverted and quite liked the idea of having 20 other people around?

No I didn’t think so either…

I love the way Stanhope takes the high and mighty position about what a terrible person the land lord is and how he must be brought to justice, when as far as I can see, the only reason that people would chose to live in such a place is because the government is doing such a shitty job at making shelter, a fundamental human need, adequately available to everyone.

Nice work by the ACT Government.