![ACT Housing Minister Yvette Berry. Picture by Karleen Minney ACT Housing Minister Yvette Berry. Picture by Karleen Minney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/e7c8ca4f-e861-43b9-8c14-9cc42855e8a9.jpg/r0_218_4256_2611_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Some of Canberra's most vulnerable households this week received an apology from ACT Housing Minister Yvette Berry for the way they had been told they would be forced from their government-owned homes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Ms Berry has admitted the decision-making process was flawed, promising a review of the way the ACT government handles relocating public housing residents.
Not only was it flawed, it was evidently cruel and callous.
Public housing has the power to materially transform the lives of those in need who are able to access it.
Kicking out long-term tenants from homes they have known for years - and in some cases, decades - without support or proper communication undermines public housing's ability to be a force for good.
The ACT Ombudsman released a highly critical report of the government's public housing renewal program this week, finding Housing ACT had "underestimated" what impact forced relocations would have on tenants. The agency's communication was "impersonal" and caused "significant distress", the report found.
Somewhere in the layers of bureaucracy, it appears there was a breakdown in human understanding and kindness. This is an all-too-common feature of contemporary public administration. Housing ACT must not forget it must look after people.
Ms Berry is right to have apologised and the government is right to overhaul the way it handles tenant relocations. It should never have happened this way.
There is no doubt Canberra's public housing system is under pressure and there is a need for the government to increase its housing stock.
Public housing stock has failed to keep up with population growth. The number of residents in the capital has grown 24 per cent since 2011 but the ACT has fewer public housing properties than it did in 2008.
On paper, a program of selling off older properties in high-value areas to fund more a greater number of new dwellings is a rational option for the government to pursue.
But housing is more than an item on a balance sheet. These are people's homes, whether it's their name on the title deed or not. Changing the game on long-term public housing tenants is unfair. Forced relocations - which take people away from their communities and further from the services they rely on - should be the choice of last resort.
The government needs to instead focus on taking a different approach into the future as new tenants move in, one which gives it more flexibility in managing its public housing stock.
In the meantime, it needs to set the standard as the city's model landlord.
Send us a letter to the editor
- Letters to the editor should be kept to 250 or fewer words. To the Point letters should not exceed 50 words. Reference to The Canberra Times reports should include a date and page number. Provide a phone number and address (only your suburb will be published). Responsibility for election comment is taken by John-Paul Moloney of 121 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra. Published by Federal Capital Press of Australia Pty Ltd.