A re-elected Baird Government will crack down on anti-social and illegal behaviour in public housing communities and evict tenants who commit serious crimes, and Bryan Doyle thinks that’s a good thing.
“Public housing is a privilege, not a right,’’ says the Liberal state member for Campbelltown for the past four years.
“We will have no tolerance for people who don’t play by the rules and who make other people’s lives a misery,” Mr Doyle said
“That is why we are increasing powers to immediately kick out serious criminals in public housing and will also introduce a three strikes policy for public housing tenants who continually break the rules.
“People living in social housing in Campbelltown want us to take strong action against those who do the wrong thing. The winners are the vast majority of good people in social housing, who for too long have had to put up with the poor behaviour of a minority.
“We have almost 60,000 people on the waiting list, which is why we are ensuring we penalise those who commit serious crimes in public housing.”
A re-elected Baird Government will:
Introduce a One Strike policy for those who seriously breach their tenancy agreement, so that the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal must terminate a tenancy where it is proven that the individual has committed certain serious criminal offences – including serious drug crimes;
Implement a three strikes policy so that Family and Community Services officials can issue a Notice of Termination if a tenant has received three Breach of Tenancy Agreement notices in a 12 month period;
Introduce 12 month probationary leases for public housing tenancies of longer than two years;
Introduce confidential Neighbour Impact Statements so the Tribunal has to take account of the impact of bad behaviour on neighbours and neighbours are protected from recriminations; and
Change the law to ensure that tenants that do not pay rent can be evicted. This is specifically aimed at those people clocking up large rental arrears through fraudulent non-declaration of income or assets.
Mr Doyle said that the Baird Government will also deliver a $20 million Social Housing Community Improvement Fund to boost the liveability and amenity of social housing communities.
“The fund will enable local community groups, local councils, private sector organisations or a combination of these to deliver projects that communities want and need,” Mr Doyle said.
“Grants of up to $50,000 each will be available for projects that improve community infrastructure, enhance open spaces, improve safety, increase accessibility for older people or people with disability or facilitate integration between social housing and the broader community.
“Small projects, like creating a community garden or improving a community centre, can make a big difference to communities and people.
“Since 2011, we have taken important steps to make social housing better including making waiting lists transparent to help people make better decisions, cracking down on rorters and introducing measures so more people can access housing and released Social Housing in NSW: A discussion paper for input and comment, to guide future reforms.”
