Senator Andrew Bartlett
Thursday, April 28, 2005
 
Housing - A Human Right?
I spent all day in Melbourne being part of the panel for the first half of a two day ' Housing Rights Tribunal', organised by the Victorian Council of Social Services. Eleven people – a couple from housing organisations but most of them individuals – told of their experiences today with insecure or inadequate housing. At the end of tomorrow, those who were part of the Tribunal will produce a range of recommendations aimed at helping address the problem of homelessness and unaffordable, insecure or inaccessible housing.

I have written before of my frustration at the lack of interest from the major parties in tackling some of the issues that are generating higher housing costs. If you can't get affordable and accessible housing right, then you are starting from a long way behind in addressing other social issues.

I am a strong believer in the value of hearing personal stories to get an idea of the real impact of government policies and laws and the forum was certainly immensely valuable in that respect. The stories some people told showed just how easily people can fall through the cracks and get stuck in a spiral of living on the street, short-term accommodation, hostels, 'couch surfing' and boarding houses – with a lot of expense and very little security and stability. It is also demonstrated how key it is to have a stable home, because once that goes it becomes very hard to address other issues. Putting effort into keeping people in a stable home saves an enormous amount of time, energy and money trying to fix things up down the track.

It would have been very difficult for many of those people to come up and speak about their personal experiences and difficulties in front of so many people. Among the personal stories was a man who had hurt his back at work and lost his job. This led to his marriage breaking down and him losing his home. Because he was on such a low income he found himself continually shifting from place to place trying to find a secure home. Another woman had got stuck with a State Govt loan at a ridiculously high interest rate which left her owing more 19 years later than she had at the start.

We also heard from an asylum seeker living in the community. This is one of the least noticed groups in this controversial area. Whilst it is better than being in detention, there are thousands of asylum seekers who are in the community on a Bridging Visas which do not permit them to work or earn any income or have access to Medicare – sometimes for years. Not surprisingly, this group of people have major difficulty keeping a stable housing environment. The one positive I could see from the recent visa the Govt announced for people who cannot be deported is that they have work rights while they are in the community – recognition of how unfair it is to leave people in the community with no ability to support themselves. I hope they extend this basic right to the many asylum seekers currently without it.

Towards the very end of the forum, I had the awful experience of trying not to fall asleep while sitting up at the table in front of everybody – catching the midnight flight from Perth to Melbourne and then sitting in a room all day was catching up with me. This was certainly no reflection on the interesting participants, and I managed to stay awake long enough to make the trip to the airport, where I’m posting this. I imagine I'll sleep on the plane home this time. Tomorrow, it will be back to the airport again, with an early morning flight to Canberra for the funeral of Al Grassby.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Thursday, April 28, 2005 Permalink
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