How many housos does it take to change a light-bulb?

Only one.

But first, you have to line up the following dignitaries:

• An official from the Local Council to award a certificate of community service, and to apologise for the absence of the Mayor, who was keen to attend but found themselves unexpectedly delayed
• a representative of TAFE to award statements of attainment
• A bevy of community workers from local services to facilitate the awards ceremony
• Interns trainee community workers to take notes and look sympathetic
• HNSW staff:




to take complaints about maintenance on notice and promise to look into it and get back to the tenant 

to hand out leaflets on domestic violence and substance abuse

to collect evaluation sheets of the event 

to photograph the event for "Your Home" 

Then there should be a

• a PhD student in search of an original qualitative research topic eg Tenant Resilience or Resistance? Funding Options For Empowering Tenant Lightbulb Change.
• someone from the Cancer Council (not sure why)
• the local MP to put on Serious Listening Face,  "really listen", and pass Tenants onto ...
• The local MP's staffer to take complaints about maintenance on notice and promise to look into it and get back to the tenant

Vale Frank Walker

Innovative Housing Minister in the good old bad old days when Labor was still Labor. See The Brown Couch's obituary

El pueblo, vencido, jamas sera unido!

You heard me right.

But if you don't understand Spanish:

The people, defeated, will never be united!

Just sayin'

More indepth analysis to follow of a Labor budget that cuts single parents' miserable stipend by a further $120, deprives working class pensioners of the overseas holiday they've been scrimping and saving for all their lives, about the pig that wallowed in in the HSU trough while no-one noticed, and then got rewarded by the Federal Presidency of The ALP. And the alternative, Abbott and Hockey doing a Dutch auction on who can be the meanest toughest pensioner mugger on the block.

On the other hand maybe I'll just pull the covers over my head and not bother.

If you're wondering where DH got to. I've evicted her. HNSW won't allow me to sublet my brain for more than three weeks without notifying them.

Update on Rent Subsidy matter



A rent subsidy printout as
received by DH in 2006

Normally of course this blog only concerns itself with matters of pressing national and international import.

So apologies for parochialism, anecdotalism, and generally "belly-aching about my case".

But perhaps a case can be made that this update is something of a public service, as it appears to cast light on the state of HNSW current internal administrative ... the correct word would appear to be "woes" - judging by the inputs and outputs observed in that black box known as the regional HQ for DH's neighbourhood.

See preceding post for the first instalment of DH being thwarted in her attempt to pay more rent to HNSW.

Called HNSW again. Was advised that DH's revised rent subsidy application (submitted early Feb) had not been actioned because apparently there has been yet more staff turnover and another new CSO charged with managing DH's property would be starting on Monday. Further, DH was advised not to report a small additional amount of income of the amount of about $250 as it would not be worth the effort,  but that it was her choice. While thinking this was great, DH is terrified of being summarily sent an eviction notice, mindful that internal communications within HNSW are not that great, and she has already once had an agreement with one CSO ignored by another, leading to an eviction order,  a summons to the CTTT (the dreaded "Tribunal"), and her life on the lawn for a month in a state of extreme stress. (See this blog 2005-6). 

So she bargained for her constitutional right to pay more rent if she wanted to*, and it was agreed that she would report all her income at the next six-monthly review, due anytime soon. So you are once again DH's witnesses that this has happened.

The 2006 rent subsidy
report unfolded.

But seriously ...

*Some exaggeration here for humourous purposes nevertheless, the reality is that HNSW's income-based rental subsidy rules are too complicated for efficient rent management.  Time and again, interactions with staff show that they are mystified by the rules. Perhaps things have changed since DH reported this rental subsidy bungle in 2006 (as per accompanying illustrations) , but calculating rent for a casualised laborforce must be a nightmare.

For some interesting insights into the dilemmas of rent setting, check out papers from Shelter NSW' recent seminar "What's the rent?" earlier this year.

Let the world be a witness



Extract from submitted document

This is one of 6 documents submitted to HNSW Sussex St office on Feb 15th advising HNSW of a change to DH's income
On 2nd March DH followed up with a call to HNSW Burwood, to discover if the info had been received. The person on phone duty assured her that the information was received, but that the new manager of DH"s property had not yet gotten around to it.

Now it's nearly April.

Now if a tenant is so much as a week behind on rent, the letters start flying instantaneously .

Not that DH is particularly keen to pay more rent. But she would rather be paying it at the time the money was earned. Given that Newstart is just $235 a week, clearly, the extra money was spent catching up on necessities as soon as it was earned. There's nothing left now. So it would be a shame to fall behind, and find the dreaded eviction notice in the mail, which terrifying bolt from the blue was the reason this blog started in the first place.

It's tempting to start up an online registry of documents lodged by date and HNSW response date as a public service

DH is happy to blame the Liberal Government. Apparently their bright idea of splitting up HNSW between the Department of Family and Community Services and the Department of Finances and Services has proven to be a dog when it comes to efficiencies.

Precariat of the World Arise!

Precariat of the World arise from your slumbers!
You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Besides, it's nearly lunchtime already, so for gorsakes, get a grip and don't let yourselves go!

So you think you're not chained?

Then what do you call that invisible umbilical cord that ties you to your PC, and is even now pulling you towards seek.com, lest you fail to report to Kafkalink and lose even that $235 a week that you had, you wretches of the earth?

DH finds it hard to claim to be desperate when everything is crumbling around us. As a mostly unpaid  member of the Precariat despite a string of degrees, qualifications, references, high level computing skills, and an arguably charming personality to boot, DH can only tighten her belt and be grateful that she still has a roof over her head, unlike so many of her fellow over-qualified middle-aged men and women. And young people fresh out of courses without jobs attached. And immigrants. And all the rest,  people who are just unlucky, unnattractive,  plain average, or deficient in the requisite sharks teeth,  ie most of us..

Here's the latest body blow to the Precariat.  Read the The Aussie making a motza from offshoring white-collar jobs and be very afraid. It's no longer just big corporations that are outsourcing our jobs to a grateful third world. Now small business can get in on the act. Those bits and pieces of jobs that DH and her fellow Precarissimos scrape up from the bottom of the shrinking barrel at ever shrinking hourly rates will now decline further.

Now there's a job for the Labour Phoenix arising. How about going out in a blaze of glory by having the courage to change the taxation system that encourages the housing crisis, and do the right thing and have one pension for everyone, with extra on top for those with disabilities. Yes, we know the National Disability Insurance Scheme is coming and will cost. That's good. But the Newstart policy is creating more disability and homelessness as we type. Force those 3 mining louts, Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Twiggy Forrest pay. And let's not forget the Faceless Criminals of the gambling industry. Confiscate their assets and send them packing. Talking about packing, think of the back tax the alltime gross-outs, the Packer family must owe.

Labor has not changed Howard's punitive regime of industrial conscription. Unemployed Australians

• first have to lose their life savings before they can even get on the miserable Newstart of abt $240 a week for a single person.
• can only earn $30 a week before starting to lose 50 cents in the dollar of their pension. What is appalling about this is that it is the same figure as it was 25 years ago, if DH remembers correctly.
• even employers associations are now starting to think this is bad.

Is it any wonder that there are so many homeless?

Let's hope this isn't an excuse to divide and rule the underclasses by bashing people who live in public housing. Housos do not cause the housing shortage.

Change the unjust laws that positively encourage landlords to get away with highway robbery first!