‘Terrified': Vulnerable public housing tenants living in fear of violent ex-prisoners

News.com.au

2 days ago

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has been accused of brushing aside locals' concerns about violent and anti-social public housing tenants being moved in next to vulnerable residents, with one elderly woman left nearly 'shaking with anger' after being 'shut down' at a community forum this week.
Cr Moore hosted the 'Your Housing, Your Say' event at Glebe Town Hall on Thursday, billed as an opportunity for social housing tenants to raise issues including 'preventing anti-social behaviour'.
One elderly Glebe resident confronted the Lord Mayor and Margaret Macrae from Homes NSW about a recent incident at her building on July 5.
'To tell you the truth, I've had not even an inadequate response from Homes NSW and indeed the police that were called,' she said.
'Homes NSW has not been in contact with any of the tenants. It was one particular tenant with a strong prison history of violence and drug-related raging. It's a really bad situation. He terrified the building.'
The woman said while the man was eventually arrested a few days later, there had been 'a succession of three tenants for that one unit who come from priority housing listing'.
'And each of them has relapsed into their anti-social behaviour really quite quickly,' she said.
'They weren't accurately assessed for suitability, they were inappropriately placed. And there are how many people who would be peaceful and not drug dealing and all the other stuff, prostitution, whatever.'
Cr Moore's response was that 'housing is providing homes for as many people as possible'.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore hosts a 'Your House, Your Say' community forum. Picture: Supplied
'And if someone behaves really badly and they're moved, they have to be moved somewhere else or they could end up as homeless people on the street,' she said.
'So it's a really challenging situation to house everyone that needs it, even people that have, you know, bad behaviours.'
'There's a need for supported accommodation, more of it, a lot more of it — there are models of success,' the woman replied.
Cr Moore said the she agreed that there needed to be more supported accommodation in the model of Common Ground at Camperdown, which caters for 'adults with complex needs that require personalised case management and psychosocial supports'.
'We keep saying that we need more Common Grounds so that people can have support services, because there are a lot of very troubled people,' Cr Moore said.
'I've doorknocked some of those troubled people and it's been quite scary. But, you know, if they're not in those homes, they could be on the street. And that's a problem for the rest of the community and also very unsafe for them, too. So it's about being a compassionate government and a compassionate community and trying to look after everyone, and that's a challenge.'
Ms Macrae added that 'often the house, the home is the crux of what gets everything else right in someone's life that's been in crisis'.
'Without a stable address, without stable accommodation, none of those other services can really come on-board and wrap around and start working with that client,' she said.
'Some are more successful than others but it doesn't mean that we don't try. I'm sorry that your examples in this particular block haven't been good but broadly we've got thousands of tenants in our district and we work very hard to wrap our services around and support those tenants.'
Another local, however, spoke up to praise the city's response to 'helping people with mental illness'.
'There's a lot of people in housing with mental illness … I think they need a lot of support,' she said.
The elderly resident said tenants were not being 'accurately assessed for suitability'. Picture: Supplied
'You can hear them carrying on. There's a lot of screaming and swearing and things. I've even seen a man riding a scooter fully naked — he didn't have a stitch on.'
Speaking to news.com.au after the meeting, the elderly resident — who asked not to be identified — said she was 'almost shaking with anger' at the response from the Lord Mayor and Homes NSW.
'It says 'Your Housing, Your Say', and we're shut down,' she said.
'They just don't want to hear it.'
The woman said it was inexplicable why 'people with a strong history of violent, anti-social behaviour are given priority public housing, endangering peaceful, law-abiding tenants'.
'That man told me personally not long after he moved in that he had been in prison for cutting someone's fingers off,' she said.
Cr Moore declined to be interviewed after the meeting, directing questions to Homes NSW.
Housing Minister Rose Jackson and Homes NSW have been contacted for comment.
As of June 30, there were 65,569 households waiting for social housing — up from 56,332 in June 2024 — including 11,525 priority approved, according to the latest NSW government figures.
The median wait time for general applicants has decreased to 14.4 months, from 20.1 months a year earlier, while the priority wait time increased slightly from 3.5 months to four months in the same period.
Under Homes NSW's recently implemented Local Allocation Strategy (LAS), people with drug-related convictions in the past five years are barred from applying for social housing in certain inner-city suburbs.
NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire
The LAS currently takes in the suburbs of Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hills and Glebe.
In nearby Paddington, residents of the troubled Lawson Street housing complex have previously pleaded with the Housing Minister to add their suburb to the LAS.
One resident told news.com.au life in the 59-unit block had been 'made hell on earth on a daily basis by people who constantly break the law' and engage in anti-social behaviour.
He said Homes NSW had shown 'total disregard' in placing people with severe mental health issues and drug problems 'in amongst units of mainly single elderly women, people with chronic illnesses and other health conditions'.
'We have been told that prisoners being released from NSW jails are at the top of the list when it comes to housing,' he said. 'The system is utterly broken.'
Alex Greenwich, the Greens state MP for the Sydney electorate, joined Ms Jackson in April last year to meet with Lawson Street residents and listen to their concerns.
In a letter to the Minister this May, Mr Greenwich urged Ms Jackson to add Paddington to the LAS.
'During your visit, Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command reported a significant increase in criminal activity and call outs over the previous three years,' he wrote.
'Police cited issues of squatters and unauthorised occupants, tenant incarceration and recidivism, drug dealing and use, theft, damage to property, threatening behaviour and assault. Police investigations also identified vehicles frequently visiting the site as known persons in the drug trade.'
Mr Greenwich said one year on, 'criminal activity and anti-social behaviour remains a daily concern that is terrifying for your tenants, my constituents'.
'Lawson Street residents have approached me to ask for the Inner City Local Allocation Strategy to be applied to Paddington in order to give them reprieve from continuing drug-related harm, disturbance and threat to personal safety,' he wrote.
Ms Jackson responded last month by noting Paddington was outside the LAS, but that the scheme was under review.
'Homes NSW continues to investigate all reported anti-social behaviour incidents and, where allegations are substantiated, takes appropriate action including formal warnings, strike notices or issuing notices of termination in accordance with police,' she wrote.
In 2021, a study by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) found ex-prisoners with complex support needs who received public housing had better criminal justice outcomes than those who received rental assistance only.
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