Housing lottery a new low at Millers Point

Residents are calling it “housing lotto”. The NSW state government has named it My Property Choice. It’s a game of lucky dip, and public tenants in Sydney’s Millers Point are forced to play if they want to “win” alternative accommodation.

Martin Barker from Inner West Tenants and Housing Services explains how it works: “They [Housing NSW] have a video screen which shows pictures and brief details about a property. Then any Millers Point tenant can go look at it and, if they like it, put in a bid. If there’s more than one bid, the lottery gets drawn to decide who gets it.

“Housing describes it as innovation … [but] it just sets people against each other. If there is a property that multiple people like, then they have to compete. It’s a bizarre sort of market”, he says.

Since the government’s March announcement that it would be turfing public tenants out of Millers Point and selling their homes, residents and supporters have been fighting the plans. Many living in the area are elderly and can trace their connection to Millers Point back generations.

“We’ve paid our taxes, we’ve paid our rent. We’re a community. We just want to stick together, and to tell you the truth, we just want to die here”, says Barney Gardner, lifetime resident of Millers Point and convener of the Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks Tenants Group.

There is growing concern that people are being pressured into accepting relocation to properties not suitable for their needs.

“My concerns would be, and there’s a few, but on the housing policy side of things, because people are scared in the context where Housing is telling people to ‘get in now or there may be nothing for you’, people might be pressured to move into housing that’s not appropriate for them”, Martin Barker told Red Flag.

Gardner is worried about competition being stirred up between tenants. “There’s a lot of solidarity, but there is an undermining effect [of the lottery system]. It is a planned strategic attack to move people out and cause dissension”, he says.

“They’re saying get in before the good ones are gone. This is disgraceful. The people who want to get into public housing are being treated like a team of cattle. If housing is coming to this, it’s a very sad state of affairs.”

The government is set to make millions off the sale of properties at Millers Point, with no guarantee that the money will be spent on public housing.

“We’re in a state of turmoil where we need more public housing”, says Gardner. ”Since this state government came to power, they’ve sold more properties than they’ve acquired or built. And there’s more growing on the waiting list, there’s 57,000 now, and it’s set to blow out to 80,000 within two years.

“The government should be ashamed of themselves for doing this.”