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 importance of governments' commitment at the federal and state level to accept their responsibility for direct housing assistance through the provision of public housing.

There have been two main trends in housing policy in Victoria during the past ten years. Firstly, governments are clearly stating that they are not about to substantially increase funds for public housing. We are told that we must seek other ways to increase the pool of affordable housing stock through the intervention of the private sector. Secondly, the other main trend over the last decade has been the lack of participation by tenants in the main housing policy debate. Surely there is a link between these two trends. An explanation of the difference in the housing scene over the last ten years sheds some light on this link.

Flashback to 1992

In 1992 I attended the annual rural camp in Creswick organised by the Public Tenants Union of Victoria along with over two hundred public tenants from across Victoria. The main agenda items were, in order; the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, Fair Rents and the perennial issue of Maintenance. In those days tenants felt they were in the centre of the public debate around housing. As well as a peak public housing body, the Victorian government also funded Shelter Victoria, a number of Regional Housing Councils, and 52 public tenant groups throughout the state, many directly employing public tenant workers. There were joint committees between tenants and the Office of Housing on policy issues and on the lobbying front there were regular convoy bus trips to Canberra and marches to Parliament House.
The last united community sector event, under the banner of People for Public Housing, was a weeklong 24-hour vigil in the Bourke Street mall in September 1997.

The Year 2002

What a different landscape now.
Apart from Housing for the Aged Action Group, the only tenant-based organisation that has received funding by the Bracks government with staff resources is a public housing tenants peak body (Victorian Public Tenants Association).
Apart from a volunteer base they have one staff member to resource the state.

Victoria is the only state in Australia without a funded Shelter organisation.
Regional Housing Councils don't exist (although the Minister for Housing has taken the title of Housing Council to describe her invitation- based advisory committee), and public tenant groups rely on a small administration grant to cover their office running costs.
While the Office of Housing has returned smaller office spaces within community facilities to tenant groups and allocated office equipment, these groups are expected to provide a significant service on their estates based on the heroic efforts of volunteers.

Is it a coincidence that there has been no concerted public housing campaign with this scenario in place?

The intellectual elite take over

In the absence of tenants' participation in the central issue of housing supply, the debate has been dominated by academia. They've taught us not to talk about public housing anymore. The in-word is social housing - it sounds much nicer.
From the National Housing Conference (organised by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute) to a recent run of housing forums in Victoria organised by various agencies in conjunction with the Department of Human Services, we have been pitched the line about the virtue of private investment in housing.
Even the right wing think tank The Menzies Institute has put its bid in for financial institution involvement in shared equity home purchase arrangements as an answer to declining access to home ownership.

Not many tenants have been seen at these events or involved in the debates.
It is as if the discussions have reached a higher plane that ordinary folk wouldn't understand.
The issues have shifted from 'more public housing' to 'stimulating private investment in the affordable housing sector, 'private-public partnerships' and 'private retail investment vehicles'.
Not a very attractive mantra for getting out into the streets.

Can you imagine a march to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria to demand that landlords meet their civic duty and invest in low cost housing?

Thanks to the academics we have never had a more detailed description of the housing crisis.
Just a few examples: Between 1986 and 1996 of the 227,000 private rental households nationally, those in housing stress had climbed from 64% to 73%, with Sydney the highest at 80.7% 1.(Affordable Housing in Australia: Pressing Need, Effective Solution; Affordable Housing National Research Consortium, Sept. 2001). While the amount of private rental housing has grown by 34%, supply of low cost private rental housing has declined by 28%. What is worse, low income households are competing with people on higher incomes for the lower cost stock - only 42% of lower cost private rental is occupied by low income households.

It is 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% 2.(Affordable Housing in Australia P.11).
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% 3.(Roger Hudson, Just Policy March 2002, A Journal of Australian Social Policy, VCOSS p. 51) with a further reduction of $80 million estimated by National Shelter in the latest negotiation of the CSHA completed in late October 4.(Press release 31 Oct 2002).

While the picture defining the housing crisis is so very clear, the proposed solutions are focused on a privatisation agenda as the shift away from the fundamental need for more public housing continues.

The Bracks Government has continued the Kennett Government's ideological push for private-public partnerships. This was launched with the Minister Pike commissioned Social Housing Innovation Project (SHIP) Report that recommends the transfer of one third of public housing stock to a number of privately owned Housing Associations. The report has become the doctrine behind the introduction of the $94.5 million investment in project partnerships with the community sector and local government called the SHIP Project.

The central purpose for the launch of SHIP was announced by the Housing Minister Bronwyn Pike as an opportunity to build a mere 200 additional dwellings, over and above what would be achieved by direct public housing acquisition, through added financial or land contributions from partners to the projects.

In the absence of interest from the private sector and limited interest from local government, grants for projects under SHIP have been mainly given to community-based organisations, particularly those already funded by the Department of Human Services.
These agencies fundamentally provide specialist-housing assistance to the community and, unlike local government who have land to donate, have little in the way of independent disposable funds to contribute. Their funding agreements also state particular purposes for which the grant monies have to be expended.
Yet a number of press releases from the Minister have stated that these community groups are contributing millions of dollars to the projects.

The question HAAG has raised therefore is: How can these organisations raise enough funds to meet the Minister's 200 extra dwellings target?
This concern led HAAG to write to the Director of Housing, Jennifer Westacott, seeking clarification about the form in which the partner contributions are provided. In her reply the Director stated, 'I am advised that the request for proposals process did not require agencies to substantiate the origin of partner equity and such detailed information is therefore not available'.

HAAG's concerns about how the 200 dwellings target can be achieved therefore still remain and now extend to questions about inadequate accountability for the provision of government grants.

For example, in what other area of government joint venture arrangements are businesses not required to substantiate their contribution and demonstrate their ability to finance a scheme before
being approved for a proposal?
This is fundamental to the viability of a project and therefore should be a condition of providing the grant.

Conclusion

The current ideological push for private-public developments in housing will only fade from view if tenants are again allowed to contribute in a meaningful way to public policy.
HAAG is currently developing an Older Persons Housing Charter that documents older tenants' main housing needs.
They are incorporated under the following areas: Affordable, Available, Security of Tenure, Accessible and Tenant Participation.
It is clear that it is only governments, which can adequately address the affordable housing needs of people on low incomes as covered by the Charter.

Over many years those who have promoted private sector contribution to the growth of affordable housing have little to show in terms of actual housing.
Where it does exist there are significant concerns about its benefits to tenants. For example, one such scheme aimed at aged pensioners is charging tenants 85% of their income in rent, leaving little disposable funds for the many essential items of daily living.
Rather than tinkering around the edges with experimental schemes, substantial efforts are needed to demand more effective use of the estimated $17 billion of Commonwealth funds currently provided for housing assistance, mainly in the form of tax concessions for investors, of which only $3 billion is currently used to assist tenants directly.

Many older people can remember the Great Depression and how appalling housing conditions were during that era.
Governments responded constructively to the task at the time.
Perhaps governments of today should read the background to the introduction of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement.
The CSHA was introduced in 1945 after the Commonwealth Housing Commission argued for direct intervention on the grounds that 'private enterprise the world over has not adequately and hygienically been housing the low income group'.
Half a century later the message is the same if we really want to listen to tenants and house the nation.