By Goya Dmytryshchak
Russell Urmston, who lived in the Hobsons Bay Caravan Park for 27 years before it was demolished for development, says he would have been homeless if not for a program run by the Tenants Union of Victoria.
On June 30, the state government will cut the $250,000 funding for the program.
The Tenants Union says its Rooming House Outreach Program is the only one of its kind that goes into places such as legal and illegal rooming houses and low-rent accommodation to help people like Mr Urmston.
The 61-year-old is now living in public housing in Braybrook and considers himself one of the lucky ones.
“If I didn’t have them helping me, there’s no way known I’d be where I am today,” Mr Urmston said. “They were saying they can help people then they came around and asked me.
“I said, ‘I’m out of work’. My caravan was falling apart because I’d had it for a long time.
“They asked, ‘Where would you like to go?’
“I said, ‘Anywhere, within reason, as long as I’ve got a place because I don’t want to be homeless’. I wouldn’t have had any money so I don’t know what I’d be doing.”
The Tenants Union’s outreach services identifies and reports illegal rooming house operators to bring dodgy properties into the legal registration system.
There are 20 registered rooming houses in Hobsons Bay and 50 in Maribyrnong, and double that number are believed to be operating illegally.
Tenants Union of Victoria chief executive Mark O’Brien said a new statewide tenancy assistance and advocacy program would replace the outreach program.
“This specialist service for a highly disadvantaged group of residents is disappearing and the tenancy assistance and advocacy program won’t fill the gap,” he said.
“The reason the outreach program exists is because vulnerable rooming-house residents don’t come to mainstream programs.”
Consumer Affairs Minister Marlene Kairouz said the old program had been delivered out of just two metropolitan locations.
“This new program goes much further by engaging 13 community-based agencies across the state to reach tenants who need help – including many rooming-house residents outside of Melbourne,” she said.
