I am the son of migrants and grew up in an inner city Melbourne public housing commission in the '70s and '80s. Having access to affordable housing helped level the playing field, it afforded us real equality of opportunity. Despite challenges and prejudices, it gave me the chance to achieve based on merit and hard work.
This week, as nine public housing towers were placed on strict lockdown, I have had numerous conversations with residents, who in addition to voicing frustration and concerns around immediate access to food and medication, the provision of healthcare workers, social workers and mental health support, have also highlighted structural concerns around access to resources and engagement with authorities.
This crisis has shone a light on declines in public housing and opened up an opportunity for us to have a much-needed conversation about the nature of public housing and the long term commitment needed to maintain this critical resource that has helped me and many others rise out of disadvantage.
There has been a decline in funding for public housing by all levels of government of all political persuasions. The last time public housing stock rose as a percentage of total housing stock was in the 1980s and 90s under the Hawke/Keating governments, but since the high point of 5.6 per cent in 1991 it has declined – yet the need has only grown.
The last time significant federal money was spent on public housing was during the GFC (2009-2012) when $5.2 billion was spent on the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. Not only has public housing stock gone down, the agency and inputs of the residents of public housing have often been an afterthought by bureaucrats.
Public housing should not serve to make people eternally dependent, but to level the playing field.
This hard lockdown of nine high density towers in Melbourne’s inner north has suddenly rendered the invisible visible. I am encouraged that residents and community leaders finally have their voices being listened to – with so many eloquently explaining not only the needs of their communities, but putting forward ideas for how to engage with government better based on their lived experience, and shedding light on what public housing communities have already done to proactively guard against the spread of the virus with limited resources.
They have been speaking on these issues for months, but only this hard lockdown has suddenly put their viewpoints in the spotlight. They are not victims and they are not helpless – so many work hard to put food on the table, get a good education and build a better life for themselves and their children. They have agency as individuals and as members of their community and they have a voice that should be heard.
While the outpouring of support and charity is welcome, it is the deeper underlying issues of resourcing and appropriate and effective engagement that we as members of parliaments, and as policy makers, must continue to keep in the spotlight. The need for more federal and state funding for public and social housing, the need for all levels of government to engage with communities to channel information effectively and to treat people with dignity and respect, and to ultimately to listen to their issues and needs and incorporate them into policy making. Public housing should not serve to make people eternally dependent, but to level the playing field.
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I understand and support the need for strong health measures by the Victorian state government to ring fence the virus given the pandemic risks of high density housing. The Victorian government and all governments have done their best, and relative to other parts of the world, a terrific job in tackling the virus and keeping us safe.
However this does not, nor should not preclude us from asking relevant questions with respect to how all levels of government engage with public housing residents because I believe we can all do better. Residents of public housing deserve to know what, if any, proactive plans by all levels of government were made to safeguard them during this pandemic?
What other responses could have been pursued by governments to mitigate the pandemic risks to high-density public housing? Why weren’t elders and community leaders consulted and asked to help channel relevant health information? What communications and health policies can be put in place to other public housing estates to prevent the extreme measure of hard lockdown as we continue to fight COVID-19?
Over the past few days, I have heard this desire to be heard and communicated with appropriately repeated time and time again by community leaders. We all must all continue to play our role by following the health advice but we are only all in this together if the voices of all Victorians are heard.
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