Prime position: Housing commission flats in The Rocks. Photo: Steve Lunam

The Herald understands the concerns of public
housing tenants who have learnt of the O’Farrell government’s plans to
sell the inner Sydney properties they call home. While the government’s
approach has been less than compassionate, its underlying strategy is
justified.

The plan is to use substantial proceeds from any sales at
Millers Point, Gloucester Street and The Rocks – with others likely in
Redfern, Glebe and Kirribilli – to provide more and better subsidised
accommodation across the state.

By placing strict conditions on purchasers, staggering the
sales and redoubling efforts towards more affordable housing, heritage
values can be preserved and community upheaval minimised.

Many public housing tenants in the inner city are among the
state’s neediest, even though they live in a highly sought-after
location.

By contrast, there are many families across the state who
have been on the 57,000-strong public housing waiting list for up to 10
years, struggling to make ends meet, relying on welfare, crammed into
share housing or living on the streets.

Those who are in public housing elsewhere have to tolerate
rundown properties. Shifting from house to house and area to area is
commonplace.

Governments should aim to scatter more public and affordable
housing throughout the city and all suburbs. We need a mix of
socio-economic groups in every community. Yet 64 per cent of occupied
dwellings in Millers Point are social housing. The government’s aim is
30 per cent for community cohesion.

Yes, it seems convenient that the government is building on
its Labor predecessor’s Millers Point plans just as construction of the
casino-hotel at nearby Barangaroo gathers pace.

But the cost to taxpayers for the upkeep of the old and often unsafe inner Sydney public housing is unsustainable.

The public housing system is bleeding cash. Supply is being
curtailed just as demand rises due to high private rents, with home
ownership increasingly out of reach.

The huge prices on offer for inner city properties present a
timely opportunity. A social impact study found the proceeds from
selling the 293 public housing properties in Millers Point would fund
replacement dwellings for all of them on Land and Housing Corporation
land plus an additional 454 dwellings.

The transition out of Millers Point will be difficult for the
20 per cent of tenants who have been there for more than 20 years.

The social impact study found about a dozen families had
multi-generational links there – some through inherited tenancies tied
to earlier sales of dock-worker cottages to the government.

But an estimated 45 per cent of public housing tenants in
Millers Point have lived there for less than 10 years. Moving for them
is likely to be less painful and more in step with the frequent moves of
private renters.

There should be no sense of entitlement and ownership in
public housing. In most cases it should only be temporary. Granted,
almost half the Millers Point community is over 60. But housing there is
by and large not suitable for those among the ageing and the invalid
with special needs.

That’s why the sell-off has to be managed carefully. Sales
should be staggered to avoid depressing the prices. The empty and most
derelict properties should go first. As the elderly move to nursing
homes or pass away, more properties can be sold. Tenants with long-term
ties to the area should be allowed to stay longest.

While all the proceeds of sales must be dedicated to the
statewide public housing system as the government has promised, a small
percentage should be set aside to fund a limited number of inner city
public housing dwellings.

Sadly, those public housing tenants who shift to the private
market to stay in the city will find only 1 per cent of dwellings are
regarded as affordable.

That only places even greater pressure on the O’Farrell
government to work with the City of Sydney to find solutions. The
current NSW parliamentary committee inquiry into social housing reforms
is a good place to look.