Increased expenditure on maintenance since 1995 has not kept
pace with demand. According to local activist, Ross
Smith, additional charges directed at tenants including
higher rent and water charges, offer no solution. The funds will need to come
from elsewhere. Mr Smith insists that government has a duty of care to tenants,
and asks, “What risk management strategies have been put in place?”
It’s a question very much in line with a recent Auditor
General’s report which refers to the need for urgent attention, especially in
regard to completing property condition surveys.
The SSH has conducted its own survey on Elizabeth
and Walker Street
properties in Redfern. Tenants confirm that, over the last ten years, only
urgent repairs have been made. Indications of neglect are numerous, and include
badly broken pathways, rusted guttering and problems with drainage, inadequate
lighting, exposed electrical wires, the stench of garbage in waste-disposal
shutes, and guano-encrusted common area floors.
“We’re treated as second-class citizens,” one tenant
remarked. “And these are our homes. The dull paintwork, the corrosion and the
filth – it makes you feel so depressed.”
Many tenants refer to cost-cutting measures, as well as to
insensitive treatment on the part of maintenance call centre operators. “It
makes you think they want the building to fall down,” says one despondent
long-term resident. Says another, “Yes, and it makes you think they want us to
leave so they can sell the property.”
Photo: Andrew Collis
– Caption: Only urgent repairs have been made
Source: South Sydney
Herald July 2007 http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/