Rethinking the housing system: Anonymous

Rethinking the housing system

Words: ANONYMOUS Images: HAILEY MORONEY

Rethinking the housing system

The current housing system fails to meet everyone’s needs – especially gender-diverse people, women, people with mental illnesses, disabilities and chronic illnesses, and people escaping family violence.

I HAVE BEEN long-term homeless and have supported many others along my journey.

In my experience, the current housing system doesn’t provide access to safe housing for homeless people, people living in unsafe or unstable housing, or those escaping family violence.

I often reflect on what it would mean for our housing system to become more caring, supportive, inclusive and safe for all homeless people, disabled people, gender-diverse people and victim-survivors.

I grew up in this system and it has never led to any stable or safe housing for me, because I have too many housing needs related to my disability.

A common sentiment in my disabled homeless community is that animals are kinder than humans, because animals don’t judge you for your disabilities, and they treat you better than most humans do. Erasing disability discrimination in the housing system and private rental market so that we are not excluded from vacancies would be an act of kindness and fairness towards us.

IN MY EXPERIENCE, many

types of housing are too unsafe to live in, and are more dangerous than sleeping rough.

I would like to see the government implement more 80:20 safer housing models, with 80 per cent home-owner residents and 20 per cent low-income housing tenants. Nightingale Housing and the Summer Foundation, which run specialist disability accommodation 80:20 models in Melbourne, have both worked on fostering community connections in their housing.

Safety and quality security modifications are important to traumatised tenants coming from homelessness into housing, so that they do not vacate because they are in danger or have conflict with abusive neighbours.

This can help prevent recurring cycles of homelessness.

Cooperative housing is another great example of building community, friendships and teamwork within housing. In cooperative housing, everyone contributes what they can, working together to run the housing. Common Equity Housing Limited is the peak organisation for all housing cooperatives in Victoria. Wurruk’an is a sustainability housing community in Gippsland, where residents live off the land and teach people in wider communities how to build their own tiny homes and earth-dome homes. Kids Under Cover builds tiny homes for young people escaping family violence.

I hope future housing options have more inclusive resident connections and community building, including more community gardens, peer-support programs for mental health, and community connections programs.

MANY PEOPLE I know have applied for hundreds of private rentals – for some women, it’s thousands – but they get discriminated against and continuously rejected by agencies and landlords due to low-income discrimination.

I hope to see further investment in accessible National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) low-income private rental properties, and the development of an accessible NRAS vacancy database.

Legislative changes and quotas need to be developed to change the ableism, racism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia and low-income discriminations in the private rental market, including from landlords. Reforming tenancy acts could also address affordability, disability-targeted abuse and other forms of discrimination.

If the government could be our rental guarantors, create more head leasing programs (where a private property is rented by a legal entity, such as a government agency, which then rents it out to a disadvantaged tenant), and provide incentives and benefits to landlords to house us, this would also help reduce discrimination.

EXCLUSION FROM private

rentals forces many into illegal arrangements and exploitation, leading to abuse, slavery, violence and unsafe housing. It becomes a vicious cycle, exacerbated by the health impacts of rough sleeping, and the fact that it is too cold to survive sleeping rough in the winter.

I have been forced into illegal arrangements in warehouses and caravan parks where I have to do all the cleaning; into rooming houses where

no-one cleaned except me; into illegal sublets; into sublet rental arrangements; into rental arrangements involving sexual harassment and abuse; and into garages and illegally run rooming houses. I’ve camped in backyards, and slept in sheds and water-damaged, flooded rentals.

All of these situations make homeless people more disabled and more mentally unwell. Some become so unwell from all the trauma and sleep deprivation that they can’t engage with the housing system, which can be like banging your head against a wall.

Many can’t use their National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding because they don’t have safe housing, or are staying in uninhabitable and highly dangerous housing. These situations can include continuous police call-outs, murders, sexual assaults, break-ins, drug dealings, stabbings and gang violence.

A lot of my peer-support work is a result of the way the current system operates. It involves crisis response, crisis resolution, support for mental health emergencies, help getting food, help organising Centrelink and NDIS, connecting people with services and advocates, and providing people hope that one day they will get stable housing. I encourage them not to give up on finding safe housing and a better future.

THE ONLY HOUSING I

have been offered that is accessible is in group homes and institutions, but these are not safe for my autoimmune conditions, as I cannot share housing due to chronic infections and viruses.

Our government has no practical roadmap to get young disabled people out of institutions and nursing homes, and keeps making false promises.

The majority of supported independent living (SIL) NDIS providers in Victoria only provide group homes rather than selfcontained housing, even to severely immunocompromised and ill tenants. They discriminate against us because they can get more money by housing as many as possible in one home.

MOST DISABLED PEOPLE

don’t get to choose where we live, or with whom. One of the main goals of the NDIS was to get people out of institutions and into the community. You need to have 24/7 support needs to get specialist disability accommodation (SDA), and according to NDIS reports, only 6 per cent of NDIS participants receive SDA.

This is unfair, because many more people on the NDIS who are homeless or in inaccessible housing need SDA.

In Victoria, where the majority of private rentals are not accessible, trying to find an accessible rental with a landlord who will rent to someone on the disability pension, is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

I have 15 major disability modification housing needs, and SDA is the only type of housing provider that will allow the modifications I need.

Many people who are homeless and severely disabled are falling through the gaps in this system and other systems, such as the Forgotten Australians services.

The NDIS told me in writing that their policy states they won’t fund disability home modifications if you’re renting in low-income housing. This policy results in mainstream housing providers discriminating against and refusing to house disabled people who need multiple major disability modifications, and refusing to fund modifications for existing disabled social and community housing tenants. This is also happening in public housing.

People not having the modifications they need results in low quality of life and for many, including myself, repeated falls, further permanent injuries and more chronic pain. For others it can lead to brain injuries from falls, and multiple other issues.

The lack of access means that the housing can be so unsafe and impossible to survive for disabled people that it forces them to vacate and return to homelessness, which has happened to me repeatedly.

I’m allergic to mould, and can’t breathe when around it because of my asthma, so housing providers refusing to fix previous tenants’ water damage is a big issue.

It’s extraordinarily hard to find affordable rentals that don’t have water damage, or where the landlord is willing to fix it.

REFORMS ADVOCATED

for by the human rights organisation Office of the Public Advocate are urgently needed for disabled people in institutions, who are too scared to go outside of their rooms due to all types of abuse.

Both the NDIS and the government are lacking a practical or accessible emergency response to bushfires, cyclones and floods, and the long-term homelessness, toxic mould poisoning, lung disabilities and complex health issues created from these.

Homeless people with disabilities or chronic illnesses are at high risk of dying during these times of emergencies, but they get left behind as they’re too unwell to engage with the system, and the system has no disability support to help them escape natural disasters.

I HAVE SEEN organisations repeatedly failing women and genderdiverse people by not providing any housing to escape family violence, which forces them to return to their abusers. The system doesn’t even have enough refuge vacancies.

Many victim-survivors have had the system fail them completely and have become severely disabled as a result of family violence.

Housing needs to come first: safety is the most important thing for trauma recovery, and no-one escaping family violence should have to choose between violence on the streets and violence in their homes – this is not a choice.

Many homeless women I know, including myself, have been forced to return to dangerous housing or abusive relationships because there is nowhere less dangerous to go, and they can’t afford Airbnbs.

Some have become pregnant while sleeping rough, or have escaped into homelessness, fleeing family violence after becoming pregnant.

Women, gender-diverse people and disabled people are at higher risk of sexual violence, gang violence, transphobic violence, homophobic violence and being murdered while being homeless. There remains no gender-diverse crisis accommodation in Victoria, and many gender-diverse people are excluded from mainstream refuges, crisis accommodations and women’s housing.

In all the tenancy act reforms that have happened to date, Australia-wide, there has not been one reform relating to disability or chronic illness, or any improvements to make things safer for gender-diverse people. This is despite my ongoing advocacy in Victoria to the Make Renting Fair campaign, the tenants’ union and the government.

Within services, people with complex needs are often dumped in the ‘too-hard basket’ and continuously referred on.

Having to retell their stories over and over again is retraumatising and makes people want to give up; it often pushes them to become suicidal.

OLDER WOMEN remain the

fastest growing homeless population, and the service system is failing them. Many are scared of ending up institutionalised so do everything they can to avoid the system entirely.

This is why peer-support groups are so important – they offer a space free of judgement, and don’t pose any threat of having the police called to force people to go to hospital or psych wards.

From my own experiences caring for my nana and my mum, there are major issues in housing systems for older people and in aged care, including institutionalised abuse and neglect, poor nutrition, and negative social environments that make residents more unwell.

Many older women don’t want to go into retirement villages or nursing homes just because they can’t find any other housing.

There needs to be stronger investment in more accessible, safe and longterm housing in the community, as we have an ageing and disabled population.

The government policy to fast-track people from hotels/motels into public, social and community housing is also leaving homeless people in the NDIS and other institutionalised systems behind. This includes those who have complex needs and cannot survive longterm in the hotel/motel system, and those who cannot get hotels funded due to the assumption that other systems will house them.

HOUSING PROVIDERS

should be required to intervene in safety issues, and providers who are failing in this area should be held accountable; there need to be consequences.

Some of the worst providers are highly abusive to their own staff, which compounds opportunities for reform, as many staff I know who quit working at these organisations are terrified of retribution from whistleblowing.

Housing cannot be inclusive or foster any sense of community and social connection unless it is safe. Even police believe certain housing should be shut down due to being so poorly managed.

The quality and responsiveness of housing providers and management often determines whether the housing succeeds or fails. How do they manage safety issues and respond to and prevent violence and abuse? What are they doing for Covid safety and outbreak prevention, and how do they respond to outbreaks? How do they address social isolation and improve community, neighbourhood and resident connections and friendships? How do they make their housing safer for children, young people and visitors? How do they respond to drug dealing and crime? Do they invest in rectification works and ventilation to stop toxic mould poisoning?

Many people in unsafe housing are too scared to complain or speak out, in fear of retribution and of losing their housing. I have been punished for speaking out and for challenging disability discrimination and abuse in the system – to the point where no-one will house me.

IT IS GREAT TO SEE that the

government is finally supporting my long-term calls for the establishment of a social housing regulator. I have advocated for a regulator to act as a watchdog that is fully independent from the housing system, workforce and government. I hope it will accept and investigate anonymous complaints from residents, staff and homeless people, and that it will be given legal jurisdiction to intervene immediately when people’s health or safety is at risk.

The regulator should hold accountable housing providers, head tenants and landlords who are not managing their housing in safe and inclusive ways. They could help approve

disability modifications when housing providers don’t agree to them, and hold providers accountable for repairs, maintenance and safety issues.

The regulator could also help international students in illegal arrangements, where multiple students sleep in living rooms and fear being kicked out into homelessness if anyone speaks out about the leaking gas stove that never gets repaired despite requests. I have had to intervene in multiple situations where students are being blackmailed, and make reports to prevent explosions.

THE WOMEN and genderdiverse people in my peer group are highly intelligent. Their sense of humour in the darkest times, their courage in fighting for a better future for themselves and their children, and their advocacy work to try to change the housing system, really motivates me to keep going with this work even through the hardest times.

More lived-experience housing advocacy and peer support is urgently needed. We want to be given stable housing, so we can improve our health, have stability, and work, given that homelessness robs us of our careers. Many of us want to contribute to reform work to change the housing system.

Some women in my group want to go to Parliament in Canberra, and I want to set up a healing sanctuary for homeless women and gender-diverse people one day. It is a privilege and honour doing this work.

Seeing someone become housed after waiting their entire lives for stable and safe housing, and seeing their lives being transformed because they finally have stability, is the most rewarding aspect of running my peer group.

I do my work because everyone deserves safe housing, and because of those I have lost to homelessness and unsafe housing.

Many people in my peer group help each other. It’s beautiful to see the sense of community among homeless women and gender-diverse people, which I actively try to build, because we are safer and stronger when we support each other.

The author (she/her) founded and facilitates a peer-support group for homeless women and gender-diverse people in Melbourne and regional Victoria. Most people she supports have disabilities, mental illness and/or chronic illness, and many have escaped violence. She is disabled, a member of the LGBTQA+ community and a social work student, and works as a disability advocate. She has made lived-experience resources to assist others to find housing in the mainstream system and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) system.