NDIA Accountability Project

Submission 131 — Name Withheld (131.2 Supplementary to submission 131) — Select Committee on Autism

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SUBMISSION TO SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON AUTISM – NO. 2

TERMS OF REFERENCE

ISSUE: HOUSING – PRIVATE & PUBLIC RENTAL

MAIN POINTS

  1. Discrimination in the private rental market

  2. Homelessness

  3. Harassment and abuse in public housing by government authorities and their agents.

  4. Retaliation and retribution by public housing authorities after I took them to NCAT about ongoing abuse of me by manager of the retirement village as a public housing tenant.

  5. PRIVATE RENTAL MARKET I have experienced discrimination in the private rental market in two instances. I was evicted in both cases and suspect this was partly because of my appearance and behaviour had been perceived by the landlords as being ‘strange’.

On the first occasion, it happened after I had been living in a unit owned by the landlord’s sister for eight years. The landlord lived in the unit next door, across the hall from my front door. When he evicted me, he did not have to give any reason or grounds for my eviction under new tenancy laws brought in by the state government at that time.

I then moved to a granny flat on the premises of the second landlord. I was assisted to get that by a kind priest after I started crying in the confessional about having nowhere to live. This landlady evicted me, again with no reason required by law, after I had been there for two years. She was snooping through my garbage in the recycling bin, and we had an altercation when I objected to this.

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  1. HOMELESS This eviction resulted in me becoming homeless for two years. Sleeping in my car and living in temporary accommodation. I was assisted by a government-funded organisation for homeless women 50km west of Sydney in The Hawkesbury but this never resulted in me finding a stable home.

So I came back to Sydney then lived in a youth hostel then a boarding house for a year before finally getting public housing after being on the waiting list for 10 years. They did not put me on their priority housing list I presume because I did not have a diagnosis. I was not to get that until six years later.

  1. PUBLIC HOUSING Public housing was fine for the first two years, 2002-2003, but then in early 2004 things abruptly changed for the worse. Looking back I can see that this was when there was a sudden unforeseen change of Director General of the NSW Department of Housing when Andrew Cappie-Wood was transferred to the NSW Department of Education to put out a fire there. It has been a nightmare ever since. The management of my property at Chatswood changed from the benevolent North Ryde office to the brutal Brookvale one. For the last 16 years as a NSW public housing tenant I have been bullied, intimidated, stood over, evicted once, and retraumatised. Housing staff who appear to be OK and perfectly reasonable in their office setting turn into monsters when they come into my place. Defensive like they think I am going to attack them. As if they think I am crazy when their behaviour is crazy-making. This is, of course, very upsetting. It is beyond disrespectful. Draconian (‘excessively harsh and severe’).. There would be many people with histories of childhood abuse (traumatisation) living in public housing. It cripples people emotionally and can adversely affect their ability to work. When public housing authorities create a similarly toxic abusive environment in the homes where these ‘survivors’ live as adults, these childhood traumas are retriggered. Like being hit with a stun gun or cattle prod. Their condition then becomes complex PTSD because it is caused by constant, ongoing traumas, not just a single one. I believe I am in that state at present because of all the abuse I have been subjected to by these nasty sadistic people who get pleasure out of demeaning and degrading me for the last 16 years. It goes beyond

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individuals. It is part of the public housing authorities corporate culture. A covert power game by those who want to be powerful against the powerless. The most recent incident occurred a couple of months ago at the hands of our new privatised ‘gaolers’ when they broke into my front yard through a padlocked gate in the early morning and started cutting down my front hedge. This was done without any prior warning, let alone any discussion or negotiation. That was the last straw for me and I took them to the tribunal and achieved a stay on proceedings. I had to pay for the privilege to do this out of my age pension. I am about to seek treatment from a psychotherapist specialising in trauma for this most recent incident. This will cost me more of my own money. I had to seek trauma treatment on another occasion back in 2015 when a government-employed public housing official came into my home and bullied me to such an extent that in therapy a repressed panic attack came up (further information can be supplied on request). A major deception is underway with the new privatised social housing system in NSW, overseen by the worst offender, FACS (Department of Family & Community Services now rebirthed as Department of Communities & Justice – Housing). They are supposed to be regulating the new privatised corporate property developers falsely calling themselves ‘community’ housing. What a joke! If only it were funny … I am probably getting off point here because I am meant to be specifically addressing my experiences as a person with autism, but these housing issues have been a major stressor in my life for a long time and continue to be so.

  1. RETALIATION & RETRIBUTION In 2009 I was forced out of the retirement village where I had been living as a public housing tenant for seven years and made homeless again by Housing NSW. This was because I had taken them to NCAT about ongoing abuse of me by the manager of the retirement village, an employee of the local council. I was forced out by a toxic chemical substance being placed on my carpet which felt like it was burning my skin and made me leave the unit at night and sleep in my car. I had just been diagnosed with autism.

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REMEDY

  1. Public housing authorities be confined to managing properties and not interfering in the personal lives of tenants.

  2. They be confined to operating in the same professional way as most private estate agents do and treating their tenants as if they were paying their wages which they are.

  3. Provide a Public Housing Ombudsman in every state. The only existing legal option, NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal, is not enough. It is the place of last resort. As I have found, it is hard to deal with, and although it claims as a lower court it does not require or appear to want legal representation, However I would say most public housing tenants like myself would need this. At the very least, legal advice on a consistent ongoing basis. An Ombudsman is also in a position to make policy recommendations because he or she is hearing the same issues over and over again. Enough to know where policy changes are required. As it stands now, this is unknown territory. Nobody cares about us hidden housos. We are effectively swept under the mat because, it appears, we do not matter and have nothing to contribute to Australian society.

AFTERWORD

It is pertinent and timely that public housing tenants living in horrendous residential towers in Melbourne are claiming they are being treated like prisoners. I know exactly what they are talking about and concur with them 100 per cent. Why have state governments been allowed to treat us like this for so long? Simply because nobody cares. Nobody bothers to look beneath the surface veneer complacency. To constantly have to live in fear and anxiety at the thought of having to have anything to do with brutal landlords acting like gaolors is not living. It is the price I and others have to pay for having cheap rent and a semblance of security.

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