A place to call home
Queensland’s Housing Strategy 2017–2027
by Dr Margaret Ward
Congratulations to the Queensland Government on their Housing Strategy 2017–2027. The signature commitment to provide over 5000 new public and affordable housing places will stem the decline of this important housing service. Although commentators, like me, want much more after the last decade of neglect, we should be grateful for this significant turn-around in housing policy.
The vision that “every Queenslander has access to a safe, secure and affordable home that meets their needs and enables participation in the social and economic life of our prosperous state” is certainly an advance on the previous State Government’s underwhelming plan to deliver “a flexible, efficient and responsive housing assistance system for Queensland’s future”. It suggests that even the most vulnerable of Queenslanders might get a fair go at finding and keeping a place to call home.
Little can happen for people without secure, affordable and appropriate housing. Minister de Brenni acknowledges that housing is “a key foundation for social and economic development” and “an essential social service”. It is squarely in the hands of the Queensland Government to ensure that this Strategy helps rather than hurts people. It now needs to commit to excellence.
The Queensland Government has been variable in its commitment to excellence in housing provision in the past. It has produced public housing that is world-class and it has also built hell-holes which make people’s lives worse. It has been difficult for the Government to maintain a constant standard of service and to hold onto accumulated wisdom when politicians go hot and cold on the importance of housing. A commitment to excellence encourages Government services to reflect on what has worked in the past and what should be forgotten before the mistakes are repeated.
For households that include people with disability, this is a critical issue. People with disability are among the most vulnerable people in Queensland and are more likely to experience unemployment, exclusion, poverty and violence. Their homes have greater impact on their lives as they often spend more time there and the design, cost and location directly affect their support, mobility, safety and independence. When things go wrong, the consequences are often dire.
Households that include people with disability are currently over-represented in social housing, (they self-identify in four out of ten tenancies) because affordable and accessible alternatives are simply not available. If the Queensland Government can get their housing assistance right for people with disability they will get it right for others. The excellent contribution by Queenslanders with Disability Network, Going for Gold, to the Strategy offers sound advice. It also highlights some omissions.
The Strategy commits to construct 50% of public housing dwellings to the Livable Housing Design Guidelines Gold Level or Platinum Level standards to increase accessibility and adaptability, yet previously in 2011, COAG endorsed a commitment within the National Disability Strategy to provide 100% by 2019. The reason for this is simple — to modify a dwelling costs 19 times more after construction than it does to include the same features in the design. We have also yet to see whether the 20-year campaign by people with disability, older people and women for minimum access features in all housing construction, also endorsed by COAG, will finally be honoured in the review of Queensland’s building and planning legislation.
Shared equity programs have been successful in Western Australia and South Australia for many years, alleviating pressure on rental programs and offering people on low to middle incomes a chance to buy their own home. QDN identifies this as a priority for Queensland, yet the Strategy does no more than refurbish the limited rent-to-buy scheme for public tenants.
The next decade will see older people and people with disability wanting and being encouraged to remain at home, yet, home modifications assistance for private housing does not rate a mention — in fact, the funding has left the Department altogether. Home modifications assistance has been variable in quality, inequitable and inadequately funded for decades, without any correlation to current housing design practices. It is a blatant example of throwing good money after bad. QDN offers a range of low-cost strategies towards best-practice through quality assurance, accreditation of suppliers and customer service, and dares to suggest that Queensland can lead other States in a national program.
Alongside the Department of Housing’s assistance to people with disability, the Department of Communities also provides housing directly and through its own funding programs. These dwellings manifest typically as group-homes and segregated facilities, owned and managed by disability organisations that provide the support as a one-stop package. The residents effectively become “captives of care” with little choice over where, how or with whom they live. In most cases they are unable to change their arrangements because, to do so will mean losing both their housing and their support. This practice of forced co-tenancies is a clear denial of human rights.
The recent Senate Committee Report into abuse of people with disability in residential settings identified that a root cause of the violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability begins with this denial of people’s basic human rights and their subsequent devaluation. It recommends that there be no enforced shared accommodation for people with disability, and that people with disability be assisted to use generic social housing programs (with all their inherent rights and safeguards) and these programs should be funded accordingly. The Strategy is silent on this issue: perhaps there are sensitivities between the relevant Ministers. Regardless, this is no excuse — the practice of forced co-tenancies is a blot on the Queensland housing policy landscape. It will not go away and needs to be addressed as a priority.
This month, thirty years ago, 350 people with disability and their allies gathered in New Farm Park to call for equitable access to housing. As a result, the Goss Government, in 1990, included people with disability as a priority in its housing reforms. The public housing program quickly demonstrated that people with the most profound impairments and illness can have a home in the community, and live full and inclusive lives, with well-designed stock in appropriate locations and with good customer service. In the next decade over 500 people left institutions to take their rightful place in community.
At that park rally, a young woman with disability read out a list of demands: “We want choice on who we live with, security in our homes, being able to have a real life in the community, to buy our own home, and to live like other people do.” Much has changed since 1987 and this Strategy builds on that change. There is, however, much more to do.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARGARET WARD
Dr Margaret Ward is a Research Fellow in the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University. Margaret has been researching the role of the support worker within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Her doctoral thesis on inclusive housing in Australia informs her role as convenor of the Australian Network for Universal Housing Design. Originally a practicing architect, she became a parent of a person with disability and as a consequence, has had a varied career as a policy writer, service provider and advocate in the areas of social inclusion, housing and disability.
Follow The Machinery of Government
