DOES it really take six months to determine that tenants have moved out of a public housing dwelling and to get something done about the three-seater lounge in the driveway and the grass up to the window sills?
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Apparently, if due processes are followed and the rights of public housing tenants are followed, the answer is yes.
As hard as it is for renters in the private market or tenants on the public housing waiting list to stomach, a home can be abandoned in the state that a house in Currong Crescent was left and the department is only now getting round to clearing it out.
Once that is done and necessary repairs and refurbishing are complete the department of Family And Community Services says it will be rented, hopefully to tenants who take much better care of it. But what does the department say to residents of the area who have had to put up for months with the rubbish, the vermin and the shadow it casts over the entire area?
It is not the sort of environment most people would want to live in, and certainly not raise their kids in. And at a time when a group of Glenroi residents is trying desperately to get council and state government funding to improve facilities at their local park and build community spirit, how can it hope to inspire others to join in?
The underlying message from the state of this property, and the length of time it has taken to get something done is that nothing is changing in Glenroi public housing.
Decent people are having a go but the abusers of the system can still trash a place, thumb their noses at taxpayers who subsidise their housing and when it suits them just walk away.
Either a ridiculous tangle of bureaucratic red tape needs slashing or an under performing department needs to held accountable.
There is little point in cleaning up public areas and expecting lasting change if authorities cannot enforce some basic standards of behaviour from tenants.