Should state housing tenants be financially liable for damage they have caused to the homes they rent?

A private sector renter has to post a bond to cover any repairs needed which they lose if they do not maintain the property.

Usually, there is a clause in the agreement they sign that they will allow regular inpections to be made while they are in residence.

Are state housing tenants also subject to regular inspections?

I have always felt public housing is immoral.

It is always those who won't put the effort into funding their own life who get the equivalent of winning the lottery by getting one.

You could not give these people the house they live in, as they know the rent they pay could never fund the maintenance costs, even if they had no other cost of owning.

Yes I believe everything, including the rent, bond etc should be the same as private rental, if any form of equity is to be involved.

God help our grand kids if we don't stop funding every drop kick in the land to a lifestyle the self supported can no longer afford.

I've never lived in public housing, however, I believe in any robust social democracy public housing is necessary....if you don't wish to have yourselves Sowetos, or as they are know in Brazil "favelos", in every city....shanty towns. Shanty towns are commonly attached to urban areas in countries not so fortunate as ours. They are what happens when countries can't afford public infrastructure like housing.

Do you know, Hasbeen, that when industrial society first took off and all the people were lured to the towns (and I use the word "town" loosely) they were piled in sometimes twenty families to a tenement The streets were strewn with rubbish and excrement - ie, there was no public infrastructure, and what private infrastructure there was, wasn't adequate. The upshot was that the whole set-up soon degenerated into a cesspit of disease and licentiousness. If you have a whole class of people living a hand to mouth existence in slums, pretty soon their behaviour and general habits start to match their circumstances.

...so, eventually all these things were sorted, and things got better, because it's imperative that any healthy society, especially one like ours which is a technologically advanced industrial model, should provide adequate shelter for its poorest.

Having said that, I see no reason why public tenants shouldn't be held responsible for reasonable maintenance of the house and environs, or any willful damage caused - that seems a no-brainer.

Poirot,
Public housing precincts are proportionally just as diseased and licentious as the tenements and squatter camps of old, it's just that their denizens now have access to free medical care, contraception, abortion and the rotgut gin has been replaced with benzodiazepine.
Remove the medical care and the population of "poor" would explode and their material conditions would putrify but mercifully they'd mostly be dead before they hit fifty.

Hasbeen you and I am bound to fight, those words as often is the case are inflaitory.
WW you as I did, may have watched the program that shows both smashed and empty houses and those waiting to get in one.
My answer without reserve is YES.
My stumbling thread about reforming that part of our economy that is Socialist, demands repayment.
Take it out of the dole or any Social security payments.
I support such housing, the one percent who destroy are not its only problem.
In my state CORRUPTION is rampart, key money/bribes to let folk in are riff.
Empty houses miss managed by public servants sit empty, both sides of politics are like a jelly wobbling on a plate.
Unsure if they want or do not want,public housing.
Many elderly and infirm, live quite ok in box like public housing.
Many social problems exist in housing areas, but too good quite neighbor hoods exist.
A balance is needed in the rental market.
Hasbeen , no fault of their own SOME very many more than you think,some end life on pensions and nothing else.
They have to confront rents of a basic minimum $250 a week, on the pension.
Do we want them out in the streets, or in caravan parks paying near that in any case.
Are the poor lessor humans?
Your words if taken as your real thoughts, answer with let the eat cake!

In London I lived in a house that was public housing sub-let by the beneficiary, who was living somewhere cheaper and pocketing the difference. I don't remember any inspectors coming round and I was there for at least 6 months.

Should people be made to pay for the damage they do to their public housing. Duh! Of course they should. Getting them to pay is another matter.

I rented my house out for 3 years & had 4 tenants in that time. Only one left the house in a habitable state. As for the bond. They don't pay rent for the last 4 weeks & stuff the bond. Could I retrieve the damages? Of course I could take them to Court, solicitors love that sort of thing & they still don't pay up after the Court Order. You still have to pay the solicitor though. Real Estate Agents, no responsibility.

Public Housing should be made of Masonry Block, walls, robes & the kitchen fittings, etc. Before the tenant moves in they should have to attend a full day course on what is expected in the way of behaviour, hygiene, cleanliness & budgeting, etc. Then the housing should be inspected monthly. If the house is not up to standard, another inspection a week later, then a cleaning crew should be sent in. The tenants made to pay for the clean up with a direct debit from their banking account or their Centre Link Payment.

3 clean ups & they're out permanently from Government Housing,their details & a report sent to all Real Estate Agents.

Dear worldwatcher,

Of course people should be held accountable for
wilful damage caused. And there should be regular inspections
of the properties for the sake of health and safety.
People should also be educated in what standards of
behaviour are expected of them prior to their acquiring
the properties. As Poirot stated - it's a no-brainer.

Speaking for my State and this would apply elsewhere (with bells on in the ACT!), Public housing tenants are covered by the same rental tenancy regulations as apply to privately owned housing. The rental tenancy regulations expressly provide that any Public housing policy must ensure Public housing tenants are advantaged with more rights and benefits. They cannot be disadvantaged.

Rental tenancy regulations are deliberately framed to ensure that the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the community can get housing and are protected from penalty for the foibles expected of this population.

That means that the private owner and the State are forever their brother's keepers. To give an example, the owner of a rental is required by law to distribute the RTA's own policy and guidelines to the tenant. It is not enough that the policy is public and freely available, or that tenant advocacy services receive public funding, a tenant is always decreed to be 'informationally disadvantaged' and less than personally competent. The tenant cannot be relied upon to read a guvvy site or get a booklet from the Post Office. The building owner become an extension of the State welfare service and a tool of the RTA and will be fined severely if s/he does not obtain and provide RTA policy and guidelines to the tenant.

contin below..

contd..

Likewise it is the State through the RTAs that has taken over residential tenancy agreements and State influence and control permeates down to the most minor responsibilities, always ensuring to transfer the traditional responsibilities of tenants (eg for minor maintenance and upkeep) to the owner. Recently the Qld RTA has taken to giving advice (it will become direction in time via Tribunal decisions) to owners on how to manage their property, and instance being that the owner should have contractors clean gutters routinely and regularly throughout the year. Likewise, rental property must always be maintained to 'good' condition. That is a condition rarely achieved for private homes ie principal place of residence because it is prohibitively expensive.

There is every encouragement and protection for a tenant to be casual with the expensive asset at his disposal and precious little the owner, including Public Housing, can do about it. Although well meant, weighting the tenancy provisions for the tenant and replacing his responsibilities with a extreme duty of care for the owner advantages the quick-witted professional tenants and those who refuse (usually willfully) to take responsibility for their actions to abuse the system. That adds enormous overheads, the cost of which must be passed on in rents and limits the supply of rental housing.

Well my view on state housing, is that such housing should be in the form of rooms to rent, in a unit complex, not a stand alone house.

Why should anyone, just because they have kids, be entitled to thier own house to live in, when unit style accommodation would offer far better value for money for the tax payer, because after all said and done, it's the tax payer that provides housing, just as much as the governments.

So I say that all state (houses) should be sold off to tenants, by way of a rent to buy scheme, with the funds generated going towards building state units, because after all, state housing, like any form of welfare, should be a 'hand up', not a 'hand out' which is so often the case.

Finally, yes, all damage sustained, regardless of who causes it, should be the responsibility of the tenant.

Of cause I will get hung for this, but that's life when you tell it how you see it.

rehctub,

Your "rooms to rent" idea is straight out of the annals of the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. I mentioned tenements that accommodated up to twenty families....they all had "rooms".

What a great retrograde idea...let's make all the plebs feel like they're crud. Let's not give them any pride in running their own "house"hold. Let's get all the kids to grow up with a chip on their shoulders, because they were the "roomies" - the kids that grew up living in rooms because their families didn't deserve to have a house.

"Why should anyone, just because they have kids,be entitle to their own house to live in..."

What a question from a twentieth century middle-class male who inhabits a technologically advanced industrial country.

It's straight out of Dickens.

Sheesh!

There is odd commonality or relationship between those who believe employers should have total power to set workplace conditions and wages and those who don't believe in public housing. Where do poor and lower paid citizens reside when the housing and private rental market becomes unaffordable?

I am glad Australia has a social welfare safety net including housing although there are inordinately long waiting lists now in most states, some up to ten years, thanks to a frenzy of selling off public housing a few years ago. As Poirot remarks, a country littered with shanty towns, tent towns and homeless people is not good for all of us and one day given different circumstances could be any of us.

As for damages, yes the tenant should be liable but I suspect it comes down to ability to pay. If an aged pensioner is living in a flat and accidentally breaks a kitchen cupboard and the cost is $100 and it will mean going without food that week - what should housing authorities do?

Does any part of the rent paid go into an insurance fund?

I don't know how this all works but if they willfully damage property don't they get booted out same as private tennants along with also having regular inspections?

I didn't actually think they got treated very well, not informed about works about to be done on their property etc.

Public housing would greatly benefit from a rationing system whereby the social security payments for whatever purpose they are paid were limited for basic usage being housing food electricity and medical rather than a single payment that goes straight into the poker machines and alcohol
CG.

the tenant should be liable but I suspect it comes down to ability to pay.
pelican,
I've lived in Govt housing for many years & I have seen a lot of malicious damage due to parties etc. No-one ever pays for it because all the tenant has to do is not to press charges & the taxpayers foot the bill. I suppose State housing is different in many ways but it's still taxpayer funded nevertheless. Accidental damage i.e. pensioner has a mishap surely is covered by insurance.
The ability in my view should be directly linked to the ability to damage. But hey, we're starting to talk Australian Law again.

Yes Poirot, it's a strange old world when the tax payer, the one who funds these stand alone houses, has to then, after helping provide subsidized housing, pay full freight for their own rental house.

In fact, I know of a single mother, who after falling behind in her rent to the tune of $2200, was kicked out as she reneged on her arrangement to repay the back rent.

She earned just shy of $800 per week, paid $80 per week for the house, but was entitled to a three bedroom house simply because she was a single mother.

Of cause the cheap rent, about 15% of real value was just one of the many perks enjoyed as a result of having a child out of wedlock.

The entire system is up side down if you ask me.

Now while I understand your point, at what stage do we say, enough is enough.

Public housing in my view should be a stop gap, not a long term alternative to standing on ones own two feet.

This is why I say we need public housing, as opposed to (public houses.)

rehctub,

Believe it or not, I understand why you think it's unfair.

My question to you is what sort of society do you want? "State housing" areas are already prone to anti-social behaviour...but you have the example of British-style tower blocks to really understand how "anti-social" things can get.

And your proposal is to have not even flats in tower blocks, but merely "rooms".

I take it you'd be happy for society to maintain vigilance over marginalised poor and their attendant problems rather than even out the playing field to some degree.

The reason the West has done so well is because it adhered to social democracy - who wants a society like the one Dickens wrote about?

I really can't see why the tax payer should be providing expensive city housing for long term [probably permanently] unemployed.

It would seem fair to me if it were a requirement for at least one of the tenants of a city house, be in full time employment in the area to qualify.

Much cheaper housing is available in many country areas, & should be used for the non-working recipients of this largesse.

One of the bunch involved in the black on black race trouble in Woodridge has now been given a house on the Gold Coast. Rather than be reward for this behavior, they should have been offered a house in Bourke, preferably very close to the police station.

If the public housing organisations availed themselves of the cheap housing available in many country areas, many more could be housed for the same investment, & perhaps some dying towns would benefit from an increase in population

My question to you is what sort of society do you want?
Poirot,
Definitely not the one we have now ! Where is the harm to ask people to put in some effort towards their own life ? I know Government policies make it extremely difficult at times to bother going on but in general no-one is entitled to demand cradle to grave mollycoddling.
It really is up to us voter to ensure we get better Government thus better conditions thus a more responsible population. How can you expect anyone to bother when they're perpetually up against those morons ?

Public housing tenants usually financially liable for damage they cause to the homes they rent.

Housing with tenants usually LandLords also financially liable for damage caused to homes they rent.

Houses funded with public monies are constructed on private corporate land.

Yet these private corporate land-owners of A* housing in SA and NT remain exempted from both tenancy laws and public housing standards.

These same private corporate landlords refuse their tenants valid leases.

Reason they give is because providing tenants with leases gives them rights... and allow these landlords to be held accountable where they responsible.

These private corporate landlords long time not held accountable for their refusal to maintain to basic housing standards in publicly funded houses.

When you build a house on some one else's block of land, they own the house - except where you have a valid lease.

Commonwealth exempts these corporate landlords from needing to issue leases.

These private corporate landlords allow their buildings to decay, become uninhabitable, fail public health standards, then scream out for more public money to fix them.


Commonwealth amended ALR(NT) so as to enable Commonwealth to go and carry out repairs to some of these houses.

Commonwealth failed to amend the ALR(NT) to make these corporate landlords to be made accountable for housing....

polpak, "Public housing tenants usually financially liable for damage they cause to the homes they rent.

Housing with tenants usually LandLords also financially liable for damage caused to homes they rent"

No, the money is often unrecoverable. The professional tenants who do the damage and refuse to pay rent know that. The provisions for eviction are heavily weighted in the tenant's favour. Check for example the ACT's tenancy regulations. The sort notice to be given by a tenant compared with the inordinately long and convoluted processes to be followed by the property owner.

Aboriginal housing SA
http://www.sa.gov.au/subject/Housing,+property+and+land/Customer+entry+points+and+contacts/Housing+SA+customer+entry+point/Waiting+list/Public+housing+options+for+Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+persons

polpak, "These private corporate landlords allow their buildings to decay, become uninhabitable, fail public health standards, then scream out for more public money to fix them"

I wouldn't say it was the landlords causing the decay and damage.

Poirot, sorry for the late reply, but it is simply disgraceful to think a person can be entitled to a HOUSE simply because a night out turned into a child.

It's a joke.