18 October 2011

Your thoughts wanted on anti-social public housing tenants

| johnboy
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Community Services have put out a discussion paper on “antisocial behaviour response and support in Housing ACT”.

This consultation is intended to inform the development of the model under which the Antisocial Behaviour Specialist Response Workers will operate. Consultation will be open over a six week period with a forum early in the period to provide input into the development of the model, including the roles of other organisations in the model. A second forum towards the end of the consultation period is to provide feedback on the final draft of the model.

Consultation questions are attached and are designed to guide initial input. Comments beyond the scope of the attached questions are welcomed.

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MERC600 said :

Check em out well before handing over the keys. Have often felt that the ACT is used by Western NSW to get rid of some of their problems, and we suckers accept them.

To be eligible for assistance from Housing ACT an applicant must have lived in the ACT for the last 6 months. Of course exceptions may be made, but they have to be signed off by the director (I think?) so it doesn’t happen that often.

And unfortunately Housing can’t screen their tenants for quality before they move in – the Human Right to a roof over your head apparently outranks the public’s right to not have a taxpayer’s asset destroyed and the surrounding neighbourhood terrorised.

So far everyone who has posted has been spot on… +1 for all of your comments.

Seems to me someone who’s into policy wrote that discussion paper. Perhaps they should go out in the field with a few housing managers or listen in to the complaints lines at Housing ACT. Antisocial behaviour specialist response workers. That’s good for a giggle. This paper won’t change a thing because those who are the cause of the problem know they have backup from ngo social services.

The problem is that our society is that we’re too hung up on human rights. You have to be human to have rights and some of the scum (neither drug addicts nor alcoholics) who just don’t want to play by the rules are pretty much less than human. Remember the CT story about the high percentage of crime committed by 8 families (could have been 6, I forget exact figures)? Get rid of the families and the crime rate plummets.

Brianna said :

essfer said :

Oh, and the real troublemakers that we’re talking about know exactly how the system works and they take full advantage. They know that NOTHING will be done against them, so they have no incentive to change their behaviour.

essfer, that is spot on. Too many public housing tenants know how to manipulate the system and have no shame in doing so.
Housing also have their hands tied by the tissue brigade. “Oh, we have to warn them, then we have to send them a letter saying how naughty they have been, if the don’t start behaving, we will threaten them with eviction and if they still won’t behave, we will go to the tribunal.” Of course, all of this is a tootless tiger and most of the tenants know it.

Toothless! Dammit!

essfer said :

Oh, and the real troublemakers that we’re talking about know exactly how the system works and they take full advantage. They know that NOTHING will be done against them, so they have no incentive to change their behaviour.

essfer, that is spot on. Too many public housing tenants know how to manipulate the system and have no shame in doing so.
Housing also have their hands tied by the tissue brigade. “Oh, we have to warn them, then we have to send them a letter saying how naughty they have been, if the don’t start behaving, we will threaten them with eviction and if they still won’t behave, we will go to the tribunal.” Of course, all of this is a tootless tiger and most of the tenants know it.

Check em out well before handing over the keys. Have often felt that the ACT is used by Western NSW to get rid of some of their problems, and we suckers accept them.

luther_bendross11:49 am 18 Oct 11

Double post sorry.

After reading the first page of the paper they’ve made it clear to distinguish between “antisocial” and “illegal”. Therefore the scope of outcomes they can acto on will be greatly limited.

Situation no change.

luther_bendross11:46 am 18 Oct 11

Good to see something’s being done about this, hopefully they follow through on the outcomes.

+1 for everything essfer said.

It is great to see some potential action to address this issue, I sincerely hope that something valuable comes from this process, not just some lip-service-band-aid-bullsh*t.

There are two issues that create instant hurdles for Housing in taking action against anti-social behaviour by tenants:

1: Evidence: Many neighbours are willing to complain anonymously but aren’t willing to provide documentary evidence or stand before the tribunal (understandable given that the accused know where they live, but still a problem for gaining useful evidence). Similarly, there can be strong suspicions of illegal activity like drug dealing, but unless there is a successful prosecution through the courts Housing can’t take action (eg evicting the tenants).

2: Housing’s social agenda – the worst of the trouble makers have no accommodation options other than public housing (would you rent a house to a family of drug-dealing, abusive, unwashed, derelict deadsh*ts?), so if they get evicted they will become “primary homeless”, meaning they get a priority housing allocation – so basically Housing boot them one day and welcome them back the next.

Unless this process finds a way to address the above issues I suspect that we will see limited improvement in the handling of the 5% of Housing tenants that give all the rest a bad reputation.

Oh, and the real troublemakers that we’re talking about know exactly how the system works and they take full advantage. They know that NOTHING will be done against them, so they have no incentive to change their behaviour.

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