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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-06-05 Daily Xml
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Housing Authority

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:12): My questions are to the Hon. Michelle Lensink, the Minister for Human Services, about the new housing authority. In light of the new housing authority announced by the Minister for Human Services:

1. What does this mean to all the 21,000 plus people who have been on Housing Trust waiting lists for decades, including the 3,000 or more listed as urgent?

2. Considering the minister's statement of a decline in revenue, how much is owed by Trust tenants in unpaid rent, and what is it doing to recover it?

3. Has the government adopted a policy to write off most or all of that debt?

4. What will happen to the previous Labor government's program to build 1,000 new homes in 1,000 days?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:13): I thank the honourable member for that very comprehensive set of questions. I will attempt to answer them all, and I'm sure that if I have missed any he will remind me of what I might have forgotten.

The new housing authority was part of our 100-day commitment. It is a policy that arose out of a number of consultations that I had with people in Housing Trust properties, in community housing properties, with providers and a range of other stakeholders in the community services sector who, I think, had been frustrated with the previous regime. This meant that the functions of Housing SA and Renewal SA were divided and, therefore, two very important parts of the system were not operating together.

As I said in my ministerial statement, a large part of this is to do with service reform. I think it is fair to say that there is a lot of systems reform that is required in this space. We need to be managing the services in a much more appropriate manner.

In the short term, the tenants will continue to be provided under the Housing SA banner, so we are not proposing to change those arrangements for them. But in the long term we are looking towards pathways for people who are in the homelessness sector who can't get their way into Housing Trust properties at the moment. We are looking to providing better services for people within the system and ensuring that the assets are managed in a much more cohesive manner.

I have heard a range of issues in relation to our social and public housing management. I think a lot of the systems don't talk to each other better. For instance, there may be properties that are within the community housing sector which could be available for people who are the most vulnerable.

The zero homelessness project that has recently been undertaken, which a number of members have referred to in this place, demonstrates a very important approach that we need to take in terms of housing in that it actually does a vulnerability assessment of individuals and therefore we can determine which people on the priority one list are in the most urgent need.

My understanding is that the business systems within the Housing Trust at the moment need to be upgraded, and there is a project that is ongoing—new technology and so forth to be implemented. But there are a number of people on the category 3 list who probably haven't been contacted to see whether they still actually are in need of a home. That is part of the problem: the assets of the Trust have not been managed in a modern way. So if you ask questions about whether some of those people still need to be on the waiting list, it is very hard to find the answer because the systems are so completely outdated.

When I was in opposition, as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee last year, the CE of the then department for communities and social inclusion referred to the Housing Trust computer system as like a blue screen. There are probably members in this chamber who wouldn't have used those sorts of systems, but I go back to when I first started working and using a WordPerfect computer screen. That is the system that is currently under use by the Housing Trust.

We need to modernise arrangements. We need to provide a multiprovider model. The community housing sector, I think, is very keen to be able to provide not just social housing but also affordable rental and affordable purchase options, and so we need to have the new housing authority as an enabler to provide for those innovations and new models.

I attended something that was put on by one of the UnitingCares recently. It was part of the Portway Housing. They have managed to refurbish some old properties, which are coming onto the market as affordable rental, and a similar one that they are doing at Kidman Park, which I have been invited to and I'm hoping to attend in a few weeks' time.

Those are the sorts of things that I think we particularly are excited about because they will provide huge opportunities to people who are struggling in the current housing market and not able to get a stable situation with a roof over their head. We want them to be in stable accommodation, and that will enable them to go on to lead more fulfilling lives. That is the system that we are hoping to transform for the future.

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