Housing
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:43): (636) My question is for the Minister for Housing. Minister, I have previously written to you about Iman Minas, who is a constituent of mine. Iman is currently facing the threat of eviction from a public housing home where she lives with her two sons. Her youngest son is autistic and requires intensive support. The other is just getting old enough to leave the nest but plans to return home regularly to support his mum and brother. The department has told Iman that she must move to a smaller house as one of her children is moving out, despite the fact that he may have to move back in because rental affordability is making it quite difficult for young people to live independently. They say the house is transitional housing, despite the fact that she has been living there for 13 years in a home that is managed by the Broadmeadows department of housing. Iman wants to remain living in this home, as she has built her life and community in this neighbourhood. Minister, will you intervene to ensure that Iman is not evicted from her public home in the midst of a housing crisis?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:44): Thank you, Dr Ratnam, for your case study, and therefore the details that you have outlined are not matters that I can address whilst on my feet, as they relate to a particular constituent. What I will say, though, Dr Ratnam, is that we have people – and you have raised this on your feet and in various places on a number of occasions before – with a great need for social housing across the state. We have families with multiple children who are waiting for housing of the configuration that you have just described. We work really hard alongside residents and their families to understand what people’s needs are when they first make an application to the waitlist; when we understand the backdating that might well occur for those applications; and when we determine how priority applications might be triaged, including as they relate to victim-survivors of family violence, for people with specific needs and for people with those sorts of challenges around accessibility and the proximity to services that can assist, particularly when there are dependants with particular needs on access to supports which may well apply – and I do not know enough to be able to comment on this – to the constituent that you have referred to in your substantive question. Eviction is undertaken as a last resort. Eviction is not and nor should it be, as part of any part of the housing continuum, a step that is taken lightly.
Homes Victoria works really hard, and I commend their efforts and in particular the housing support officers, who every day talk with families like your constituent about their needs and about how their needs might be changing over time to make sure that the housing that is available that people are calling home is fit for purpose. On the one hand, Dr Ratnam, you are saying this is transitional housing and therefore the conclusion that you are inviting me to reach is that it should be transitional in nature. On the other hand you are saying that the constituent should not be required to move. I am very happy to work with you, Dr Ratnam – perhaps not in such a public way – to determine what supports may be available to the constituent whose needs you have outlined and also to make sure that we are placing people in housing who are waiting for housing in the sorts of configurations that you have identified. Again, where there are particular needs, we need to make sure that they are accommodated to the best possible extent within the housing stock that we have available; however, speculation about whether somebody may need to return is one of a number of factors at play that Homes Victoria considers as part of applications.
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:47): Thank you, Minister. I am raising it today in the chamber because I have previously written to you about it and it has not been resolved, and this family is in real distress because of this prolonged waiting time. The reference to transitional housing speaks to the mismanagement by the department, because it has been 13 years. I am not sure how you classify transitional housing when someone has been allowed to live in a house for 13 years, so there is something going wrong here with the management of this situation. Because of the housing officers’ threats of eviction Iman has fallen into a deep depression. She is terrified that she is going to end up homeless with a high-needs child. After I wrote to you and to the housing office Iman told me that housing workers came to her home and told her that if she did not accept alternative offers they would evict her. Unfortunately, we have been hearing of these intimidation tactics very regularly through the relocation process that is taking place at public housing estates. It happened previously at the Walker Street, Northcote, and Barak Beacon estates. Minister, will your government stop pressuring public housing residents to leave their homes under duress – which seems to be what is happening very regularly?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:48): Dr Ratnam, I have just sought some advice while I have been on my feet and while you have been asking this supplementary question. I want to correct a number of things that you have just asserted in your substantive question and in your supplementary. I am advised that the department and the transitional housing provider have not issued a notice to vacate. On 28 June staff from the department’s Broadmeadows housing office spoke with Ms Minas, where she confirmed she had not received a notice to vacate from her home. Ms Minas was reassured that she will not be required to leave her home until a suitable public housing property that meets her and her family’s needs becomes available. What you are asserting, Dr Ratnam, did not happen. Nobody – and I just want to put this on the record in a way that I hope will get a public airing – has told her that she would be evicted.