OZschwitz: Degenerate welfare groups call for crackdown on rooming houses

A boom in unregistered rooming houses in Victoria has prompted welfare groups to call for tighter regulations to stamp out rogue operators.

Tenants Union of Victoria spokesman Toby Archer said so-called slumlords were partitioning off rooms in suburban houses and renting them for between $170 and $300 per week.

"We're seeing an alarming increase in the number of people who are forced to live in sub-standard private rooming houses because the rental market is no longer affordable," Mr Archer said.

"Unscrupulous private rooming house operators have seen this as an opportunity to cash in on this situation by cramming as many people into one house as they can, without regard for their residents' safety, privacy, health or sanity."

Mr Archer said the union had received reports of bedrooms being created in basements and roof cavities.

The union, the Council to Homeless Persons, the Victorian Council of Social Service and the Community Housing Federation of Victoria will launch a campaign on Monday (July 6) to change private rooming house laws.

The campaign, Call this a Home?, is calling for the introduction of licences for operators and more effective registration and monitoring of rooming houses.

It also wants the state government to introduce minimum standards to meet the basic needs of rooming house residents.

Under the Health Act, rooming house operators are required to register properties with four residents or more with local government. But to avoid compliance costs many refuse to do so.

According to Call this a Home?, rooming house tenants share poorly maintained kitchens and bathrooms, many rooms lack locks, and residents can be subject to violence from other tenants.

The acting chief executive of crisis housing agency HomeGround, Julia Canty-Waldron, said she recently heard of a father who guarded the bathroom every morning while his 16-year-old daughter showered.

"There is no lock on the door and they share a three-bedroom house with over 10 strangers," she said.

"We see everything from missing smoke detectors, exposed wiring and holes in walls to blood-stained mattresses, filthy bathrooms and needles lying around in hallways."

About 4,500 Victorians live in rooming houses, mostly in suburban Melbourne, according to 2006 Census figures.

But welfare and housing groups say this figure is likely to be under-reported because the number of private rooming houses has exploded in the past 12 months due to a shortage of affordable housing.

The campaign estimates about half of those living in rooming houses reside in sub-standard, unregistered premises, believed to number between 700 and 900 in Victoria.

In 2007-2008, the tenants union visited 110 rooming houses, of which 90 per cent were unregistered.

LNK

OZschwitz: Degenerate welfare groups call for crackdown on rooming houses

OZschwitz: Degenerate welfare groups call for crackdown on rooming houses

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