The main area of housing concern to Housing for the Aged Action Group (HAAG) has been the plight of many older people who are forced to survive in the private rental market.

61,000 of those people are in the private rental market.
Of greatest concern is the fact that there are 20,000 older private renters who are reliant on the aged pension as their main source of income to cover their housing and other living costs.
Gentrification has seen a steady procession of older people on low incomes away from their traditional communities around the inner suburbs of Melbourne to the fringe suburbs where services are less available - this at an age where people need services most. This trend of dislocation from life-long neighbourhood networks has serious consequences for an older person's health and well-being. With waiting times for public housing up to 12 years, many older people on low incomes are forced to be pawns in the housing speculation game with few options available to get them off this insecure treadmill.

HAAG's services are faced with a continual procession of clients between 60 and 90 years of age who are on a cycle that looks something like this:

1. Contact due to rent increases or capital gain eviction that requires a suitable outcome within a short period of time. Either the tenant has been given a 14-day Notice to Vacate because of rent arrears or a 60-day Notice to Vacate when the owner wishes to sell or renovate.

2. Negotiation with landlord for extensions of time due to lack of appropriate options. At best this usually means an extension granted at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT)
of a few weeks.

3. Contact with affordable housing providers such as the Office of Housing or Independent Living Units (ILUs) to get clients on to waiting lists that can be up to 12 years in duration.
Since priority access for people 75 years and over was scrapped in mid 1990's there are often no grounds for people of advanced age to be housed within a reasonable period of time in public housing.
The 300+ ILUs have different eligibility criteria that can make entry time difficult to estimate.

4. Crisis negotiations continue with affordable housing providers as eviction deadlines approach.

5. If no breakthrough is achieved then a last resort attempt is made to find yet another private rental dwelling for the older person.
This usually means considerable compromises about the location and condition of the dwelling to try and minimise the proportion of rent paid.

6. While continuing to support the older person in a range of ways to assist with services while living in costly and insecure private rental housing, more attempts are made to find an affordable housing option.

7. Often a successful outcome is not achieved before the pressure of step 1 begins again. The cycle continues.

With an ageing population expected to reach 25% of the population by 2050, there is a serious need for governments to tackle the housing crisis now. Just as important however, is the need for government commitment at the federal and state level to accept their responsibility for direct housing assistance through the provision of public housing.

It has been estimated that in the mid-1990's there was a national shortfall of 150,000 affordable dwellings as the number of low income households grew by at least 70%.
This crisis of supply has occurred at the same time as funds provided by the Commonwealth Government through the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement (CSHA) have declined steadily since 1986.
In the past decade alone the funds have declined by 26% with a further reduction of $80 million estimated by National Shelter in the latest negotiation of the CSHA completed in late October 2002.

Another private rental matter of great concern to HAAG is the number of older people we are contacted by who are living in terrible housing conditions caused mainly by their fear that their complaints to obtain repairs could cause them to be evicted or suffer exorbitant rent increases.

The following photographs ( note: currently contained only in the Summer Newsletter 03 ) are from some recent cases where HAAG has intervened to assist tenants who have lived long term (between 10-30 years) in accommodation that is akin to what people must have endured during the Great Depression.
It is shocking to think that these housing conditions exist in 2003.

Older people in particular are at great risk in these conditions and it is clear from our casework that in many cases their health has suffered significantly.
It has also highlighted the need for our organisation to be more pro-active in assisting any people in the community who may be living in poor housing.
We have decided that in 2003 we will be running a special campaign to encourage older tenants to contact us who face similar circumstances. This will include street stalls, publicity and even alerting the Real Estate Institute of Victoria to the plight of these tenancies, many of whom they should be ashamed are managed by real estate agents.
If you would like to be involved in this campaign please contact us on 9654 7389.

Recently a number of amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act passed through the state parliament.

The proclamation of the new legislation was the culmination of a lengthy process of consideration by the government.

HAAG was involved to the extent of organising a workshop to gather the views of our members and putting them together in a submission to the review.

We also attended a lively meeting at the Department of Human Services where the views of tenants and landlords came together in a clash of interests!

Overall, HAAG was very disappointed with the minimal changes to the Residential Tenancies Act. In fact, we were very disappointed that we did not get any feedback at all about our submission to the review.

The main changes to the Act that affect our members are:

Increased notice period from 90 days to 120 days for tenants to vacate if the landlord wishes to give no reason.

Setting a limit of two rent increases per year.

Granting of residents rights to a person who occupies a caravan site for at least 60 consecutive days (reduced from 90 days in previous Act).

While there are many other minor amendments, HAAG is disappointed that some of the major matters raised in the original Discussion Paper were not finally considered.

In particular, HAAG was hoping for the introduction of minimum housing standards for tenants.

At present a landlord can offer a property to a tenant in practically any condition. (See article in this edition on Terrible Housing Conditions).

There needs to be set standards such as heating, security, quality of appliances, etc.

More fundamentally, HAAG believes there needs to more improvements regarding tenants privacy and longer notice periods in general required to be given by landlords.

Many of the people who contact our service have received a 60 day notice to vacate and this is much too short a time to allow for many older tenants to move house and find other suitable accommodation.

In the absence of decent legislation we encourage all tenants who are living in unsafe and unsound housing to take steps to get their homes repaired.

Briefly, the steps are:

1. Serve a Notice to Landlord form specifying the repairs needed.

2. After 14 days request an inspection from Consumer Affairs.

3. Proceed to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to have the matter decided.

Remember, HAAG is here to help and can assist or represent you if you need a hand through the process. Ph: 9654 7389