BackIn a report tabled in Parliament today the NSW Ombudsman, Paul Miller, has called for significant improvements to be made to the delivery of public housing disability modifications. The report "Modifying public housing properties to meet the needs of tenants with disability issues identified through complaints" tells the story of 3 public housing tenants who requested reasonable disability modifications to make their homes safe for them.
Government policy says the process should have taken 30 days. Instead, in each case it took over a year. There were repeated failures to respond to the tenants and occupational therapists, miscommunications between contractors and government agencies, and failures to keep proper records.
In the meantime, the tenants were forced to live in premises that were unfit or unsafe for their needs.
Public housing is the joint responsibility of the Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) - the ‘landlord’ of public housing premises, and the Housing division of the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ Housing) - the tenancy-relationship manager. Disability modifications are undertaken by sub-contractors, working for head contractors engaged by LAHC.
In 2016, the contractual arrangements with head contractors for maintenance and modification works on public housing premises were replaced. In part, those changes were intended to address issues raised over many years in tenants’ complaints about delays and poor service. However, the Ombudsman’s report notes that complaints to the Ombudsman from public housing tenants have risen since the new contract was introduced.
“Public housing tenants may complain to us after they have already raised their concern with DCJ Housing and LAHC, and not received a satisfactory response. When we then engage with the agencies, we will typically see that particular tenant’s issue resolved quite quickly,” the Ombudsman, Paul Miller said. “However, what we have not seen is a sustained improvement in the overall trend of complaints, which continue to raise similar issues.”
The Ombudsman has therefore made 27 recommendations for improvement, informed both by the 3 complaints that were investigated in depth, as well as other complaints received by the Ombudsman since 2018.
Pleae find the full press release and the report here.
Source: New South Wales Ombudsman, Australia
