Stories of the road…
How a housing crisis forces people into caravan parks
DESPITE the economic downturn, despite the loss of the tourism industry and the pandemic lockdown which kept tourists away, finding affordable housing in Tasmania remains a challenge even as the state reopens now that it and others on the Australian mainland have succeeded in suppressing the Covid-19 virus.
When I wrote this story in the second month of 2020, Tasmanians were facing a crisis in affordable housing. Then came the lockdown to stem the advance of covid-19. The state went into statis as normal life was suspended. Now that Tasmania is reopening, so are some of the causes of the housing crisis returning.
The story remains much as I wrote it back in February, only updated to bring it into accord with the current situation.
AN OLDER MAN and his teenage daughter. A younger couple. A middle aged couple. A single woman. A woman with three children travelling in a small caravan. What they have in common is they were living in the caravan park at Seven Mile Beach, a coastal town close to Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city. What they also had in common was their inability to find and pay for permanent accommodation in Tasmania’s escalating housing crisis. This is what I learned while living over summer in our VW van at the caravan park and talking with people there.
I am talking about the time just before the state locked down to eliminate Covid-19, a successful strategy, it turned out. My partner and I moved out a couple weeks before the lockdown, but, taking heed of stories coming from the Australian mainland and overseas, we were already taking precautions around the shared camp kitchen and shower block by sanitising our hands and being generally cautious.These were precautions that soon became commonplace. Where the people we shared the caravan park with went as Covid-19 cases started to appear in Tasmania, as the caravan park closed and the state moved to lockdown, I have no idea other than the older man and his teenage daughter found a place to pitch their small car-camping tent in a relative’s backyard.
AirBnB—decline and return
Exacerbating what was a long-term housing crisis in the state before the pandemic was landlords withdrawing housing from rental for quick profit on the AirB&B market. We should be clear that not all short term accommodation on AirB&B is displaced rental accommodation. Rather than spare rooms rented out on AirB&B that would never be offered for full-term rental, or families renting out their holiday shacks while they are not using them, it is investment in properties specifically for the AirB&B market that displaces long term rentals for local people, much as it has elsewhere in Australia and overseas. It becomes a source of quick profits for individuals that carries a social cost.
The pandemic and lockdown brought sudden change. Suddenly finding themselves with no tourists to fill their AirB&B properties, many landlords switched them to the rental market. This didn’t do all that much to reduce rental prices because demand still exceeded supply. When Tasmania reopened to internal travel and after the government gave internal tourists a rebate for accommodation and tourism-related activity, the AirBnB market started on its road back.
Now, with Tasmania open to mainland states where Covid has been suppressed, the comeback is likely to get a boost. The same thing happened with house sales. Stimulated by the existing shortfall, demand for Tasmanian properties remained high enough to prevent property prices falling as they were then doing on the mainland. The state’s accommodation crisis continued.
Migration to resume
Hobart’s housing affordability shortfall was brought to prominence in 2018 when people unable to find or afford high rental costs set up tents in the Hobart Showground campsite. The influx overwhelmed staff at the van park, which caters mainly for travellers and holidaymakers, and led to calls for the state government to do something about the state’s dire housing crisis. At the van park where we stayed I was told that people were camping on The Domain, a forested ridge of public land close to Hobart CBD.
Tasmania has its own success to blame for its housing crisis. Human-scale cities, proximity to the countryside and national parks, a buoyant tourism economy and cheaper although increasingly costly land and houses compared to mainland prices lured jaded mainlanders south over recent years. Some came to work, some to retire, some came for family reasons. Others came to visit during the holidays, liked what they saw and stayed. Now, with Covid in suppression across the nation, migration is likely to resume.
Prior to the pandemic, Tasmania was a sellers market when it comes to houses. Prices rose substantially over recent years. A worn-looking vertical board holiday house, built in 1949 and close to the sea at Dodges Ferry, a small town 40 minutes east of Hobart, sold for AU$600,000 in late 2019. The sellers were playing on its proximity to the water, however the condition of the house was not the best with loose, uneven and missing boards on the verandah and other shortcomings. Just a year or two ago the house would have sold for substantially less.
Mainland immigrants who get a good price for their big city house can still do well financially by buying in Tasmania. Not all mainlanders are so cashed-up, however, and with housing prices on the decline on the mainland, many sell to find rising Tasmanian prices leave them with less spare capital.
Caravan parks: today’s affordable housing?
The caravan park at Seven Mile Beach catered mainly to holidaymakers, not permanent residents. Others I have seen housed a large number of permanents. Many were there voluntarily, preferring the simplicity of life in a caravan with an annex to a home in the suburbs. Others are there because they cannot find or afford a home elsewhere. This presented a problem unforeseen by government when it introduced its Covid lockdown. Caravan parks closed, but what of the permanent residents? Overlooked, that is what. It remains unclear what they did, however some farmers offered unserviced camping to mobile lifestylers and mainlanders trapped in the state by Tasmania’s and mainland states travel restrictions. Some caravan parks closed to all but permanents.
How many people are we talking about when we mention permanent residents? All we have is pre-panemic figures.
In a research report entitled Housing risk among caravan park residents, the March 2004 edition of the AHURI Research & Policy Bulletin reported that the 2001 Census found 61,463 people to be permanent residents of Australia’s caravan parks, an increase of about 6263 people on the 1996 ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Census.
The 2011 e-brief of the NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service reported the 2006 Census found 11,037 households living in caravan accommodation in NSW. A total of 8258 or 74.8 percent owned their caravan and rented the site. A total of 2779, 25.2 percent, rented a caravan and site.
The research found three permanent resident sub-groups living in caravan parks:
- older people who choose caravan park living as their primary form of housing for lifestyle reasons
- people who travel for work and do not wish to tie themselves to any one residency
- people who are unable to access other forms of housing either in the private, public or community housing sectors.
Social welfare agencies have used caravan parks as emergency accommodation for their clients.
During our nine-month road trip in a minivan, which ended shortly before Tasmania locked-down, I spoke with a middle-aged man living at the van park at Gloucester Tops at the base of the mountains in NSW’s Mid-North. He is a voluntary park resident who pays rent to the van park owner. As the owner of his caravan he can sell it and the annex. The time he can stay at the van park is limited by management, so he has another caravan and annex in another location he goes to.
On our road trip I noticed how caravan parks were becoming the preferred and affordable accommodation choice of retirees with, in those with permanent residents, a large portion of older people. A report on nine.com.au confirmed that retirees and pensioners choose to live in the parks as they “…ditch the rental market and retirement homes”.
University of Queensland demographer, Elin Charles-Edwards, said the trend could continue to grow, however with caravan parks focusing more on holiday accommodation their role as affordable accommodation could be at risk. This is what happened when in October 2018 residents at Caloundra Waterfront Holiday Park were served eviction notices so the park could cater exclusively to holiday accommodation.
The trend continues into post-lockdown times. When in Launceston we park the van in the low-key caravan park in Glen Dhu. The park is almost all for travellers. There are only two long-term residents, a middle-aged man living in a Coaster minibus camper and a fragile, aged man living in an old caravan. The managers recently replaced old cabins with new and are expanding their number. There is already a jumping pillow for children, however staff told me that plans include a water park and other changes. Developments like this demonstrate how the traditional, low-key Australian caravan parks with basic facilities are changing into holiday parks for the tourism market. This has been the situation on the mainland where some who stay in the parks complain that they are forced to pay for amenities they never use.
The pickers
Stay in a caravan park in Tasmania before the pandemic and you would notice the number of itinerant fruit pickers camped there. These were people on a working visa for whom the caravan park was temporary home while they worked the orchards and berry farms in the area. Here, we are not talking about the big holiday parks familiar to mainland travellers but the low-key, cheaper caravan parks found in smaller towns.
What those pickers really were was cheap labour for orchardists and farmers. While there were Australians doing the work, what put off greater numbers were the low wages, the travel involved, the costs of accommodation close to the farms and the reluctance of farmers to pay good wages to Australians. The work is also hard and exposed to the summer sun and weather.
Most of the pickers were foreigners. At the Seven Mile Beach caravan park the French predominated, however there were also Asians. Try to use the camp kitchen at dinner time and you might have to wedge yourself between them to get to the stove. They could be noisy. At one time management asked them not to party into the night because other residents had complained about their noise. When we stayed in the camping area at Cygnet a few years ago, the pickers had completely taken over the camp kitchen and there was no way for anyone else to use it. This can’t be good for the tourism Tasmania relies upon.
Their absence due to the pandemic ending international travel is noticeable. Pickers provide caravan park owners with an income stream, however their impact on travellers from the mainland, as well as Tasmanian travellers, is something yet unexplored.
Accommodation for the gig economy?
When we were living in the caravan park, a middle aged woman lived in her camping trailer with its big blue tent over by the side fence. She said she was happy living under canvas. Close by was a single woman, also middle aged, living in a small caravan with an annex. She has an arrangement with park management to maintain the landcape, and later bought a home in Dodges Ferry. The woman who did the cleaning had a similar arrangement with management.
There were other working people here. A family with a young child were living in the camping trailer near where we parked our van. The man drove off to his temporary job early in the morning, as did another nearby. They were not the short-term residents working on road construction I encountered in other caravan parks. Although their lifestyle was itinerant they stayed in one place for longer periods. Perhaps that is the same for the family in the caravan in the Launceston caravan park from where the man, dressed in his day-glo safety shirt, goes off to work each day.
Caravan parks will again become the temporary accommodation of mobile workers in the gig economy—the part-timers, short-term-contractors, the casuals. This is likely for a growing number of older people who live in vans, caravans and mobile homes in the US according to author, Jessica Bruder. In her book, Nomadland, Jessica writes that older people are finding their retirement incomes and pensions insufficient and, so, look for temporary work as pickers, campground hosts and at Amazon warehouses during busy periods. Whether this translates to the Australian experience, and to what extent, we don’t know. What we do know is that Australia has a mobile worker demographic for whom caravan parks are temporary affordable accommodation.
Australia’s mobile demographic
The younger couple I met in the camp kitchen were in their late thirties or early forties. The man was studying at Certificate 3 level and the woman worked. Despite that, the high cost of rentals kept them in the van park.
The couple were not going to be fulltime caravan park residents. Eventually, they would move out. In the meantime they were part of Australia’s mobile working demographic, working people living long-term but not permanently in the affordable accommodation of caravan parks.
The older man with his teenage daughter was a pensioner. They lived in a cheap, single room, four-person tent. When they move they towed a small trailer with their belongings behind a small, older sedan that doesn’t have the power for towing. A one-time diesel mechanic who served in the Army and who worked on a cattle station in the Kimberley, he was given a week’s notice to vacate the rented house he and his daughter occupied for eight years. He looked for a rental but nothing was affordable. They preferred a permanent rental house, however the state’s housing crisis relegated them to life in a tent in a caravan park. They were two among many.
This was just one caravan park. How many others house people in similar circumstances?
More…
Hobart showground https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-18/showgrounds-homeless-population-overwhelming-show-staff/9559000
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/home-rental-hunters-unhappy-campers-in-tasmania/9516868
Why caravans could be the new retirement plan of choice https://www.9news.com.au/national/caravan-park-retirement-grey-nomad-census-numbers-rise/8865922c-570c-41f8-a33d-e149c6fcd9bb
Residents prepare to fight after orders to leave caravan park https://www.9news.com.au/national/a-current-affair-caravan-park-residents-angry-land-sold/138875d2-2518-46de-b5b9-5449f26de67d
Caravan Parks. 2011 e-brief of the NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/caravan-parks/Caravan%20Parks%20E%20Brief%2011,%202011.pdf
Nomadland; 2017, Jessica Bruder; WW Norton & Company Inc, New York. ISBN 978–0–393–35631.1.
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