Miajan, resident story

MIAJAN RESIDENT STORY

After living in an Evolve Housing property for almost two decades, Miajan decided to join the Resident Advisory Group to share his ideas and help to shape a better tenant experience for his peers.

Miajan joined the Resident Advisory Group (RAG) in February 2020, as one of 15 new members that were engaged as part of the group’s restructure that occurred in late 2019.

The restructure was designed to ensure that the RAG represents a broader, more diverse range of Evolve Housing tenants who can share their viewpoints. It also involved changes to the way the RAG operates to create more effective procedures and enhance dialogue between the group and Evolve Housing staff.

Members meet once a month for a few hours to discuss

important issues that may be affecting tenants. They sometimes meet with representatives from different departments of Evolve Housing to better understand the organisation’s operations.

Miajan said that he has enjoyed the experience of being part of the RAG so far and was motivated to participate as a way to give back to his community. “One of the reasons was because we have been living in this property since 2002. We’ve gotten a lot of experience, I wanted to share those experiences with others,” he said.

The focus of the group and its discussions are always how to improve the lives of Evolve Housing tenants, and despite the different backgrounds and geographic locations of tenants, there are some core issues that seem to affect all residents. “In our group, tenants are the centre, so all issues around the tenants are discussed there,” Miajan said.

“For example, the issue of rent assessment…the method of payment and how they can pay, the issue of maintenance comes up, the issue of security… those are the things that are coming up.

“Activities are proposed, which type of activities we can hold and when they can happen. The most important thing is communication and educating people about their rights, their responsibilities, and those sort of things. Also, the issue of skills and training comes up. These are the main issues so far that came up from the RAG meetings and of course for every issue there are sub-activities and other issues.”

The group has a primarily advisory purpose, providing suggestions from a tenant perspective to management for consideration, and a report is written up for each meeting including minutes and action items.

“The ideas that come through the RAG, that will help the Evolve management team while they are working on policy issues, they’ll develop strategies that will help them … we nicely pressure them,” Miajan said.

Miajan, his wife Huma, and their four sons have been living in their property at Lidcombe since 2002, and were originally tenants of Cumberland Housing, which was one of the predecessors of Evolve Housing.

He came to Australia in 1995, after spending his childhood and early adulthood in Afghanistan then living in Pakistan as a refugee for 11 years with his family.

Miajan has previously worked as a college teacher in Afghanistan before migrating to Pakistan, since 2002 he has worked for the government of Afghanistan, as an adviser, and has also worked with international

non-government organisations.

While Miajan said that he loves his home country of Afghanistan, like any parent, he was worried about his children’s future and wanted to give them a safe life in Australia.

In addition to his volunteer role with Evolve Housing, Miajan also contributes to his local community by working as an interpreter in a variety of contexts such as health care settings and courts. Miajan said that he and his family appreciated having the stability of long-term rental housing located in a friendly community.

“First of all, they [Evolve Housing] give us a permanent address to live in, it gives you peace of mind, you have a roof on your top and a place to live in. This was the most important thing,” he said.

“Secondly, the area is pretty good. There are housing properties that have a lot of issues but here we don’t have any of those issues, it is good for kids and there’s a park…. We are very happy.”