DISCUSIONES SOBRE LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN.

Social housing policy needs to better integrate with other policy frameworks and principles, specifically the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children 2010– 2022, the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009–2020, principles of Indigenous peoples’ self-determination, and the principle of harm minimisation in the National Drug Strategy 2017–2026.

The best and highest sort of integration, it might be said, would be a social housing policy that ensured assistance for these groups in a non-marginalised social housing sector of diverse providers, built forms and connections with community development and other support

agencies. The suggested general changes to law, policy and practice above would also improve the way in which social housing landlords relate to vulnerable persons and families. Below we discuss the specific application of these changes, and some further policy development options for better integration.

Women

Social housing landlords generally have a strong commitment to assisting women affected by domestic violence into safe housing. Our research finds, however, that this commitment can falter where women appear to fail to engage, and violence becomes obscured by its framing as ‘nuisance’ to others. The gendered nature of responses to male misconduct short of violence is also not expressly acknowledged in social housing policy. Social housing landlords should review their policies and practice for gender impact, to critically challenge the framing that tenancy management work and law tends to place on questions of personal agency, responsibility and interpersonal relations.

Within the National Plan’s vision for broad attitudinal change and cultivation of respectful relationships and gender equity, there should be space for work on respectful relationships specifically in the context of systems of benefit provision—i.e. social housing, social security— where relationships matter and can put benefits at risk. Social housing landlords could sponsor, but not lead, community development work to this end.

Children

The paramountcy of ‘the best interests of the child’ should be reflected in decision-making about the termination of tenancies, both by social housing landlords as they consider commencing and continuing proceedings, and courts and tribunals as they determine proceedings. Both social housing operational policies, and the provisions of residential tenancies legislation regarding the discretion of the court or tribunal, should be amended accordingly. Both social housing landlords and courts and tribunals should also consider developing processes and specialist capacity to sensitively gather from children their own views about their housing and other circumstances.

Indigenous persons and families

Cases about Indigenous persons and families often involve complex personal histories, institutional contacts and interpersonal relations, shaped by past and present institutionalised racism and colonialism. In the jurisdictions where they are already established, specific Indigenous landlord organisations, housing officers in mainstream providers, support workers and tenant advocates are often able to collaborate and negotiate this complexity. Establishing and building the capacity of these organisations and workers should be a priority in all

jurisdictions. As well as being applied to individual casework, the experience and knowledge of these organisations and workers should also be turned to helping communities determine broader questions about appropriately adjusting tenancy law’s imposition of responsibility and liability on tenants individually to reconcile with cultural obligations and extended family responsibilities.

Persons and families with members who use alcohol and other drugs

Social housing landlords’ responses to problematic alcohol and other drug use should be guided by the principle of harm minimisation, not ‘zero tolerance’. This includes where drug use by a tenant or occupier gives rise to drug offences and hence to use of the premises for an illegal purpose. In these circumstances, the social housing landlord’s response should, according to the principle, weigh the risks of homelessness, disrupted treatment and more dangerous use posed to the drug user and their household member, against a realistic assessment—not an assumption—of the continuing risks posed to others if the tenancy continues in the present premises. If the risks weigh against continuing the tenancy, and the criminal justice system has seen fit to allow the person to live in the community, another social housing tenancy elsewhere should be offered.

As a principle, harm minimisation also countenances the harms that may be done to neighbours and housing officers from abusive behaviour arising from alcohol and other drug use. In these

cases, too, the risks may weigh against continuing in the present premises, but there should be no evictions into homelessness. To put the principle into practice, the social housing sector will need to develop specialist knowledge and resources.

6.3

Summary

In their responses to crime and anti-social behaviour, social housing landlords are afforded by residential tenancies law with a remedy—tenancy termination—that is a blunt, heavy instrument with impacts on tenants, family members and other persons. Laws and policies regarding its use are, in significant respects, in conflict with the objective of sustaining tenancies for vulnerable persons and families.

To better integrate social housing policy with wider policy frameworks and principles for the support of vulnerable persons and families, policy makers should consider:

 moving support out of the shadow of tenancy termination

 giving tenants more certainty through commitments that no-one will be evicted into homelessness

 ensuring proper scrutiny is applied to termination decisions and proceedings, and to sector practice

 law reform regarding tenants’ extended and vicarious liability for other persons.

 With regard to each of our four types of vulnerable persons and families, policy makers should consider:

 conducting a gender impact review of social housing policies and practice, and sponsoring the cultivation of respectful relationships

 adopting ‘the best interests of the child’ as the paramount factor in termination decisions affecting children

 establishing specific Indigenous housing organisations, officers and advocates

 adopting ‘harm minimisation’ as the principle for responses to alcohol and other drug use, including in cases of criminal offending.