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1:15PM Friday 21 November, 2008 Sunshine Coast weather Late thunder min 20° - max 30°

Woman 'not forced to live in caravan'

12:00a.m. 22nd July 2008

| By Belinda Warren

Housing minister Robert Schwarten has called for an investigation into why a local woman has been housed in a caravan which appears to not meet his own department’s guidelines.

However, he also questioned why the tenant did not just move to shared accommodation in Gympie.

The comments follow the Daily’s report on disgraceful living conditions at the state government-owned Woombye Gardens Caravan Park.

The unemployed tenant of one of the vans, a 47-year old Sunshine Coast grandmother, told how she lived in a tarpaulin-covered, leaky, cockroach-chewed derelict caravan with just a microwave to cook with and plywood covering the holes in the floor.

Mr Schwarten said it was the woman’s choice to pay $120 a week for the uninhabitable van.

“That’s the reality of it – the options we have in this life are not easy for us,’’ he said. “She has chosen this van and has chosen to stay in this location.

“She’s not forced to live in that van.”

Mr Schwarten questioned why, if health was her main priority, the mother of three children and grandmother to five grandchildren who had called the Coast home for the last 15 years, did not move into shared accommodation facilities at Gympie.

He said it would cost 25% ($67.50) of her weekly $270 a week Newstart allowance.

Mr Schwarten said while the housing department owned the caravan park, it was managed by the Public Trustee and was not public housing.

He said when the department took over the park, 20 vans deemed uninhabitable were removed, 13 of those replaced by the caravan park manager.

And if the caravan’s conditions were as bad as reported, he wanted to know why the tenancy was allowed, saying he would not tolerate such conditions.

Once sewerage plans are approved by the council new relocatable cabins will go on site.

Recent Comments

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Posted by buddinaboy from Buddina
on 22 July, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
This life isn't a free ride, why do people expect our govenment (our money) to be responsible for looking after them, yes some people do need help but the majority of them getting hand outs should stop smoking, drinking, betting, get off the dole and get a job
Posted by BigTiny from Wondai
on 22 July, 2008 at 8:56 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Fair call bud
Posted by seahawk_39 from karuah
on 22 July, 2008 at 7 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Remember the old saying"Walk a mile in my shoes".
Posted by Adkins from Moffat Beach
on 23 July, 2008 at 7 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
seahawk, this is very simple, you walk a mile in someones shoes, your a 1,609 meters away, and you have their shoes....

buddinaboy, i couldnt agree more. People that are on these pensions and such should be monitored more strictly. Also think that if she is getting $270 every week, as a newstart allowance, she wasnt exactly forced to live there.
Posted by Jason from Pomona
on 24 July, 2008 at 8:19 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
The real message in this story is not the choices of the tenant rather that Robert Schwarten is thumbing his nose at the Westminster system of government, our system. Ministerial responsibility is out the door as Robert Schwarten hasn't the foggiest as to how the department he heads operates. The buck doesn't stop with Minister Schwarten, it's passed on. Some underling will get hauled across the coals and the weakest party in the affair, the tenant, is blamed for not moving away from the community she resides to another region.

The disadvantaged are more likely to succeed if living in a supportive community where they have contacts and a network of friends. Shoving people off to Gympie or elsewhere as Schwarten proposes will only create more problems in the long run.

Schwarten also boosts that the caravan park is not public housing, so his department were profiting by renting out unhealthy and substandard accommodation? Surely the public prosecutor should be looking into this.
Posted by LilySinclair from Alexandra Headland
on 28 July, 2008 at 12:49 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The fact is, $540 a fornight is not much to live on with the rising rates of things on the coast. I myself am on Newstart, and am looking to get off of it obviously. I have $440 a fortnight, $165 which goes into rent for a crap appartment that I share with three other people, as well as food... which happens to be noodles and packet pasta mostly. I end up spending the rest of it on buying other food and fuel, and try to save as much as I can for bills that come up. This isn't living and we don't always have a choice in it. People don't want to employ young people that haven't worked before or older people such as this lady. Newstart isn't meant to be a living, its meant to be temperary until you can find work, IF you can find it.
Posted by justifiable0 from Beenleigh
on 1 August, 2008 at 3:45 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Well whats the alternative for someone in this situation? Waiting 10 years for public housing?
Going to a real estate with 20 other applicants to pay $230 a week for a flat?
Go and live in one of those "affordable housing" projects in inner Brisbane, I have been there and done that not by choice what fun it was having the police turn up day after day, being hassled by the police after coming home from work e.g. what are you doing here, who do you know here? I was working full time yet if id rented privately around the CBD i would have been paying close to half my wage in rent.
And throw in all the junkies, ex-prisoners, drug pushers, mental health patients, the elderly, and single parents into one small space thats what you call a SLUM.
If the government does not want to build more public housing then why dont they introduce rent controls like they have in some parts of the US,
cap private rentals at the CPI, just by doing this it would not cost the government a cent and it least it would mean that people who want to have a choice in where they live could actually afford to.
Property owners have to make money sure but in a country like Australia people have a RIGHT to a decent place to live not get dumped in hovels like these caravan parks or "affordable housing".
Posted by wiradjuriwoman from Katanning
on 1 November, 2008 at 8:29 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I live in Western Australia but did return to NSW and QLD with the purpose of finding accomadation to return to my home state to be closer to family, I was appalled at the prices of rentals and conditions of housing in both states in comparison to WA and SA, there is no regulatory body to govern the conditions of rentals let alone the prices..as for watching over pensioners, let me remind people that the employment status of this country is not good, people seek employment but age is a factor in many fields, you are either too young or too old or too inexperienced or over experienced re many employment places, by the time a person pays for fuel to look for work, pays the rent buys the groceries and pays for basic essentials such as power etc there is no money left.
Single mothers are at least being responsible and caring for their responsibility..not so many single dads..they (the single mums) deserve to be looked after by the wider community as they are supplying a population growth.unemployed mums and dads are in a position where they must ration out food, clothing and personal nmeeds to a family that is growing each day, they do this on a pittance of money that does not represent 25% of the basic wage, so I do not believe they are unemployed intentionally, disabled people live on a pension of a mere pittance which is getting a boost for Christmas but if you attempt to earn any money to assist yourself you repremanded by a government that admits that the pension is defintely too low to survive..and we call this a democratic country..we are watched by everyone on everything we do..bank accounts are scutinised and questioned for each gift your children give you or for selling a piece of furniture, this country has become a backstabbing,backbiting ring of jealous people, we tittle tat on each other and judge each and every person for each and every thing. One day you may be that woman libving in those squalad conditions as we entering this economic downfall no job is safe and we should reach out and help one another.

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