Rooming House Campaign

Council has moved to support this very important Victorian Local Governance Assoc Rooming House campaign.

It was apparent that there is much we can do to improve the way we respond to unsafe rooming houses and to make the unscrupulous owners more accountable as both an individual council and as a sector


At a council level officers at Brimbank have been quick to recognise that we need an integrated response that involves all the relevant areas of council including:
Building services
City compliance
Environmental health
housing support services
community health services
Fire services
And the homeless persons programme



As a sector there is a need to lobby for:
Increased registration and policing of rooming houses
Encourage the reporting of unregistered rooming houses
Licensing of the RH operators
Increased penalties for unlicensed premises
And to encourage 3rd party complaints against these operators


It became clear to me though that this is also an important campaign not only because it highlights the plight of the most marginalised in our community who are stuck in unsafe rooming houses, but because the issue cannot be divorced from the issue of access to affordable housing more generally


The discussion at the VLGA highlighted that unsafe rooming houses are a failure of the private housing market to deliver affordable housing. This is not a new issue or a cyclical problem. This is a problem of capitalism. It is a problem of the private housing market. When times are good for the housing industry and they are building houses hand over fist, the supply increases and the problem is not so acute, but when the market dries up the few who drop off the edge become a large number indeed. And it has nothing to do with the actual number of houses built, but everything to do with the fact that people on low incomes cannot access the houses


So rather than an aberration, it is actually a function of the private market


We have been told by the state gvt that there is a massive housing shortage and this is used to justify the massive roll out of housing construction


Is there really a shortage or is this a move to prop up a struggling industry and their profits


Forgive me for being cynical but I have just discovered that ABS data shows there is in fact more than enough vacant dwellings in victoria to house the entire Victorian population

I repeat, there is enough dwellings to house the entire Victorian population


At the heart of the problem lies the fact that housing is not built to match actual need Instead we have system that is just trying to produce as many houses as it can for profit. The irony is that Many of these properties are actually being paid for by the tax payer thru negative but we never own them


Even if we plough ahead and build all these new houses and destroy huge tracts of grasslands. Guess what we will still have a rooming house problem, and we will still have poor people who cant afford housing, we will still have homeless people


If we are serious about addressing this issue we need to look at providing housing differently. We need to increase the public ownership of housing and we need to be able to match up vacant houses with families. We can only do that if we own it

Housing shortage a myth
Councillors participated in a very wide ranging discussion that quite clearly explained that it is a failure of the private market to deliver affordable housing. This is not a new issue, nor is it a cyclical problem. This is a problem of the private market and always has been. There has been growth in rooming houses because of an increase in the sub-residency model and illegal building works.

Some of the key issues covered included:
The need for registration and policing of rooming houses
Unregistered rooming houses
Fire safety issues
The coordination of council departments in the policing of registered and unregistered premises
- Need for the licensing of rooming house operators
- Need for an increase in the penalities for unlicensed premises
- Need for third party complaints against operators
- Need for the government to use their own data.

ABS data shows that there is currently enough vacant housing to house all Victorians but policies such as capital gains tax and negative gearing act to encourage landlords to sit on vacant properties


Climate change and social justice – what does this mean?
The VLGA has decided that its response to the State Government's Climate Change Green Paper* will essentially be framed in terms of the impact of climate change and strategies to address climate change on equity and health.

There are many ways climate change will affect the community disproportionately and this is directly linked to capitalism. Until such time as we deal with this structural inequality we will not be able to share the shrinking resources equitably and fairly. We do not have a society that distributes wealth or health equitably.

There is an urgent need for local governments to start addressing this inequality. And when it comes to climate change there are many worrying examples of how those on low incomes are going to be affected far more greatly by climate change impacts than those who are well off.

For example, many people are probably not aware that more people were killed in the heatwave leading up to Black Saturday than in Black Saturday itself.

Another example is that we will soon have to pay more for water because of the desalination plant. Those on low incomes will find these increased costs the most difficult to absorb and will certainly be in a much more difficult position compared to those on higher incomes who have already been able to afford to install water tanks and water efficient appliances. A more equitable response would be to support households to achieve water independence through water tanks, storm water harvester and cheap water saving measures

Those on low incomes and those who are older or with disabilities will also find the extreme heat more difficult. While those on higher incomes can afford passive solar design for their houses, insulation, weather sealing, cooling units and holidays to cooler parts of the world, while those on low incomes cannot.

Other examples of vulnerability to climate change include: the higher price of foodstuffs due to changing climate, aging, access to services, and rising prices for energy use and petrol to run cars.

Councils are in the unique position being closest to the people and we can deliver or lobby for projects that will reorient services and supports to those most disadvantaged. We can tax big businesses (this is constrained in local government) to offset service provision to those most vulnerable instead of allowing the gap to widen.


* A 'green paper' is draft policy document and discussion paper, usually provided for public comment