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A free house for the most undeserving

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

10 Feb 05:48am

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Filed under: Environment, Property, Rental, Sydney

30 comments

The NSW State Government has built a house.

Wanted: the new Jetsons

It’s got three bedrooms, rooftop solar panels, state-of-the-art lighting, water-saving appliances, a fuel cell that converts gas to electricity, a worm farm and an electric car. Located in a nice suburb it’s around 30 minutes from Sydney CBD and comes with a 12 month lease. It’s also 100 per cent rent free.

As any member of the begrudging, under-slept and over-caffeinated Sydney rental set will tell you, there’s few opportunities like it. In fact you’d have to see it to believe it. And you wouldn’t be the only one.

There you’d be, just before 8am the very next Saturday morning, cradling take away coffee or nursing a hangover. Having joined the enormous queue of people just like you that have lined the street in question and most of them arrived early. 

So maybe that’s why the state government has gone to such great lengths to advertise for a tenant for their Sydney house. But unfortunately they’re not looking for “just any” tenant. 

The ABC reported that the search criteria befits a Jetsons-like family with a “good sense of humour”, “patience” and a couple of young kids able to “use technology”. 

Or in other words a middle class family with parents who are employed, children attending school and pretty much everyone in good health. And that’s disappointing. 

Most people lucky enough to be in that kind of position don’t need a house. They’ve probably already got one and if they do, they may even be one of the record number of first home buyers in NSW in 2009. 

But there’s plenty of others who aern’t.  And if the state government was happy to give this opportunity to “just any” NSW family, they wouldn’t need to bother with the whole selection criteria. 

NSW is drowning in individuals and families that need a roof over their heads. Approximately 40, 000 people are waiting for public housing and more than 800 people are homeless.

Many of them are families and most of them are without jobs. 

For most of these NSW people the opportunity to live in such a great house, in a comfortable and safe suburb and not have to pay rent would be more than just a fun way to spend a year.  It would be a totally new beginning and a chance to get ahead.  Why aren’t they first on the list?

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Most commented

30 comments

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    • E says:

      07:17am | 10/02/10

      What are the bets it goes to a Labor Mate?

      Reply

    • Louise says:

      07:54am | 10/02/10

      Lucy
      What a good article and I could not agree with you more. Just last week the lack of public housing was discussed and what unacceptable numbers this country has for families and individuals waiting to have a roof over their heads. What is our State government doing about that?

      Reply

    • Bug Catcher says:

      07:56am | 10/02/10

      Yeah, a Labor Mate on the dole with 6 kids in tow. P E R F E C T!!

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      08:03am | 10/02/10

      Maybe it’s Mike Kaiser’s new house?

      Reply

    • Craig Lambie says:

      09:05am | 10/02/10

      I think you are getting your issues mixed up.
      This house will be used as an example to all middle and upper class families on how to live with a lower footprint.  I would suggest it was funded by a different department from the department of housing who look after Public Housing.
      It is like comparing apples and oranges to compare this project with public housing.
      I think it is a great project, which will show “normal” people how they can improve their lifestyles, decrease their costs and therefore their footprint.

      Reply

    • H of SA says:

      09:46am | 10/02/10

      Yeah I doubt this comes under the public housing trust or whatever its name is in NSW. The real issue is not, why is a middle class family getting a free house as part of an expirement. The real issue is why does your state have inadequate public housing in the first place.

      Reply

    • LimaBean says:

      10:33am | 10/02/10

      Surely with all the homeless on the street, someone deserving could be given this house till they get on their feet, Perhaps they could give a few people the use of this home for a few months each whilst they bank enough to pay for a deposit on a rental property.  Common sense does not seem to come into this and if your going to give charity (free rent) please give it to someone who deserves help

      Reply

    • Charles Kelly says:

      11:05am | 10/02/10

      Public housing should be abolished immediately - and replaced with a means tested rent subsidy scheme. This would go a long way in ensuring the system is not rorted, and it would also help to eventually rid areas of public housing ghettos (and the associated anti-social behaviour) by diffusing the concentration of participants in the scheme. Tenants would be helped by the government providing the rental bonds and help in obtaining a lease. Landlords would be protected by the government controlling the rental bonds and insuring against willful damage and any other anti-social behaviour (all too common currently in public housing).

      Reply

    • Brendon says:

      09:12am | 11/02/10

      Hi Charles, Hmm- good idea, but I’ve been stung with this. My investment property was leased through DoH and rent fell behind - there was nothing I could do, the property was trashed and I was the one left standing empty handed - the tenant stayed for two more months, then was evicted. Tribunal immediately halved the outstanding rent and I havnen’t seen a cent since.  No control, no protection.

    • Charles Kelly says:

      01:18pm | 11/02/10

      That’s not good at all Brendon, and I’m sorry to hear about it. It’s yet another case of systemic incompetence by the DoH. I think the way it SHOULD work is that the DoH pays the landlord the rent, and then it’s up to them to recoup the money from the tenant. The Doh should also be responsible for paying insurance on the property, and covering the cost of any damage caused by tenants. At the moment it’s “NO care, NO responsibility” from the DoH and rental tribunals with regards to landlords - and it appears that the self-righteous holier-than-thou snivel libertarian do-gooder types couldn’t care less that people who work hard to better their lives continually get shafted. Evidently some of them actually get some kind of perverse pleasure from these situations.

    • The Other Martin says:

      11:10am | 10/02/10

      Why do we accept the discrimination in this article? In what sense are “a middle class family” undeserving? They are people, just the same as those you lavish your compassion (& other people’s money) upon! You know nothing about them! Shame on you Lucy - stop picking favorites!

      Reply

    • Charles Kelly says:

      12:19pm | 10/02/10

      From what I can see, the creation and occupation of this house is supposed to be by way of example to other middle class families who would follow suit - not yet another handout to lazy uneducated no-hopers. This article is just yet another pile of ill-informed self-righteous PC drivel.

    • Malone says:

      11:16am | 10/02/10

      I would suggest, y’all read the link to the ABC report. This is an experimental house where the habits and energy use within this state-of-the-art “green” house, will be monitored and broken down, to analyse how these energy savings cna be implemented statewide.

      Lucy. Very disappointing. Seems somewhat disingenuous on your part to portray this as a public housing issue. If governments were not doing this, there would be great outrage at their Ludittic approach to green energy.

      And if a family got in there and that weren’t tech savy, so many energy saving devices couldn’t even be studied, or even worse destroyed this “public housing”, then there would be an outcry over stupid politicians not even being able to give away a free house!

      Reply

    • Super D says:

      11:22am | 10/02/10

      30 Minutes from the city?  I’d rather be in the public housing in the Rocks, Glebe, North Sydney or Woolloomooloo than out in the burbs no chance of a panoramic harbour view out there.

      Reply

    • SM says:

      11:44am | 10/02/10

      Lucy, this is perhaps the most inane piece ever published on here. 

      Reply

    • Charles Kelly says:

      01:21pm | 10/02/10

      Even the title of the article is offensive - implying that people who have worked hard all their lives to ensure a comfortable living are “undeserving”. My suggestion would be to pay someone more “deserving” to write for The Punch.

    • BT says:

      04:32pm | 10/02/10

      Yes Charles, because in comparison,  homelessness is such a holiday! It’s like The Hyatt…only without, well, anything at all!

    • Charles Kelly says:

      09:32pm | 10/02/10

      And how exactly BT, even in the mind of the most ideologically deluded cretin, does your comparison therefore mean that people who have worked hard all their lives to ensure a comfortable living are “undeserving”? Pathetic.

    • BT says:

      11:51pm | 10/02/10

      What condescending arrogance. See Charles, there are some people for whom judgementalism and labelling are ugly and inhumane traits they redress with education and compassion. Clearly for you, if you have a home it means you are the moral superior of others less fortunate. The fact is pal, that ten percent of homeless people are children, and a great majority of the rest of the homeless are either Indigenous, come from family violence/abuse and/or have mental health issues.  Morality and being ‘deserving’, sir, has NOTHING to do with how many assets you acquire.

    • Charles Kelly says:

      08:11am | 11/02/10

      How’d you like to actually answer my question now BT? Think you can manage that in between your bouts of self-righteous indignation? Or are you only capable of jumping to ill-informed conclusions and ignorantly putting words into other peoples mouths?

    • BT says:

      12:16pm | 10/02/10

      Loved the article Lucy, and it rings very true for me. Families get more than enough subsidies whilst singles such as myself prop up their lifestyles.

      Reply

    • Dr Gaye Barr says:

      01:38pm | 10/02/10

      Hi Lucy,

      I understand where you’re coming from, but the purpose of this project is research. Therefore, they’ll look for laboratory rats that fit a certain criteria. Financial status shouldn’t be a barrier to applying - I think they wanted people with writing skills to document the effectiveness of the establishment., which is fair enough. Given that it is only one house, the choice of a needy or deserving family won’t serve to put a dent in the poverty crisis. 

      Having said that though, it would be nice to see the opportunity to go to somebody who fits the citeria AND is in need of it.

      Reply

    • Joel says:

      02:00pm | 10/02/10

      Um…. it sounds like they want the house to be lived in by people who won’t trash it…. Chances are if your underprivledged people moved in, it would be changed to two bedrooms and a drug lab, the solar panels would be stolen and sold on ebay, the state of the art lighting would be vandalised, the water saving appliances would be damaged beyond repair through misuse, the fuel cell would also be sold on ebay, the worm farm would be neglected and die, the electric car would be souped up with 20” chromies and cut springs and the nice suburb wouldn’t be as nice once all the neighbours have moved away…

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      02:17pm | 10/02/10

      Yeah and they’ll get a good price to, cause if they’re really dumb, they won’t be able to haggle.

    • N says:

      03:07pm | 10/02/10

      Sounds like a more than adequate synopsis to me!

    • Gerry says:

      06:00pm | 10/02/10

      In case you haven’t noticed most taxpayer funded “gravy” is served up to the the least deserving in good old Oz with a few crumbs thrown to the poorest to make it look like we have a caring society. It all runs on greed and spin.

      Reply

    • Jason says:

      06:25pm | 10/02/10

      “needy” is probably a better word than “deserving”...deserving implies hard working people who somehow keep themselves over the poverty line don’t deserve it.

      Reply

    • sha says:

      06:33pm | 10/02/10

      Poor Charles Kelly has a miserable life that has left him bitter and twisted. Sorry mate…. better luck next life..

      Reply

    • Charles Kelly says:

      08:30am | 11/02/10

      Thanks sha, I appreciate your concern. You’re absolutely right - I have a “miserable life” and I’m really hoping my “next life” will be “better”. Instead of working my butt off every day of my current life for my six figure income, my European car, my comfortable lifestyle and regular overseas trips, I’m hoping that in my “next life” I’ll just sit on my lazy butt and do nothing, while living off handouts from lovely compassionate people like you.

    • Paul Davies says:

      06:47am | 11/02/10

      interesting. So people who work and are successful enough to own their own home are “undeserving”, and those who aren’t, “are”. How twisted is that?

      Reply
 
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