Thursday, 14 November 2024

Public housing residents

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:15): My question today is to the Minister for Housing, and I am just aiming to seek some more clarity about public housing residents’ right of return once the towers that are currently slated for demolition are rebuilt. We have heard reports that public housing residents have received Homes Victoria correspondence that stated that they would have the right to return to their area pending their ‘ongoing eligibility’, rather than to the specific site, and then on the Homes Victoria website it states that, ‘You have the right to return to your current neighbourhood based on your ongoing eligibility’. Now, this mention of eligibility has made some residents nervous that for some reason they will not be eligible to return to their current estate. Could you just clarify for the house what is meant by ongoing eligibility as it relates to public housing tenants being relocated into community housing?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:16): Thank you very much, Mr Puglielli, and thank you for the opportunity to provide the house and indeed you with some further detail about what we are doing on housing relocations. I am of course – and I will continue to extend this offer – very, very happy to provide a briefing on social housing policy to you or to the housing spokesperson Ms De Vietri in the other place. That was an offer that I made dozens of times. That offer stands, so please do ask for a briefing at your convenience to give you some more detail about the relocations process.

As we see this population growth continue to have an impact across the state, we know that we do need to provide more housing. We have engaged with thousands of tenants or residents of social housing so that they understand what the impact of those relocations will be, and as you may recall I was really privileged to meet with people, and this included the then Acting Premier, the Treasurer Tim Pallas in the other place, to announce the further development of two sites in Richmond and in South Yarra to build on the work that we are doing as part of the tower redevelopments and also the walk-ups that will be coming online progressively. One of the things that I have been at great pains to make very clear to residents is the right of return, and this is where when people are relocating there is a process which involves being able to nominate the areas where somebody would like to live while that relocation is on foot, and we do everything we can to make sure that residents can identify the areas where they want to live. This is about a process of identifying the neighbourhoods and the areas, which may change as residents explore further what a relocation will mean for them. We do see that there is often a very iterative process with housing office staff and with Homes Victoria around relocations, and we ask people to identify a number of different areas where they might like to go in order to best meet their needs. In many cases that will be about staying in the same neighbourhood, but not always. Homes Victoria meets the cost of relocations, and there are rent settings that remain unchanged for the duration of the relocation as far as what that means if they move, for example, to community housing. There is also a right of return as you have rightly pointed out, and this is part of the documentation that we give to people when we talk them through their options, often in that very, very iterative way over a number of conversations.

When people exercise a right of return we work with them so that we can understand what that eligibility looks like, which goes right to the heart of your question, Mr Puglielli. And eligibility may vary for a number of reasons; when we are talking about the same house and the same configuration it may be that that is no longer the right fit for a family, for example, where children have grown up and moved out. If, for example, you have been in a three-bedroom home while you have been relocating and the children have since moved out or moved elsewhere or you no longer have, for example, an intergenerational housing arrangement, the eligibility for a similar house with the same number of bedrooms will no longer apply.

It is also about eligibility in terms of the way in which the eligibility for social housing exists in the first instance, and those settings are there very, very deliberately. We do cap out at the income levels that you would be aware of, with Commonwealth rental assistance applying to community housing. The income that applies is the rent-setting factor for public housing – between 25 and 30 per cent across social housing, as that varies. If we see people who are no longer eligible for social housing, then again it is about what we can do to assist them for private rental assistance, for example, for the bond loan scheme or for the work that we are doing. It might also be something that relates to the redevelopment being complete – (Time expired)

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:20): You have just used a few terms in your response to my substantive question, and people have raised concerns that terms like ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘areas’ can be interpreted as quite broad and could be interpreted to mean somewhere quite different to the situation where they are currently living. Could you please confirm for the house that all residents in these redevelopments will be able to return to the same estate once these developments have been completed?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:21): Again, it is about understanding what eligibility looks like. We do everything we can to make sure that people can exercise the decisions that are right for them, and it is also spelt out very, very comprehensively in the relocation policy manual that is online on the Homes Victoria website. What I would perhaps offer is an opportunity for you to go through that particular policy and then we can sit down and go through what that looks like. Neighbourhood and the identification of neighbourhood will vary from place to place and from person to person. Physical proximity to neighbourhood again may well change. When we are talking about multifaith and multicultural communities, for example, ‘neighbourhood’ might have a very, very different meaning than to somebody who has specific accessibility or medical needs for what that relocation right of return looks like. So, again, I am very, very happy to provide you with that detail and to sit down and take you through what that process looks like.