investigation
Investigation: Perth’s soaring rental prices see parents and children sleeping in cars as families evicted

Alice is like any other four-year-old. She loves Barbie dolls and her favourite snack is chicken nuggets. But unlike most four-year-olds Alice doesn’t have a home. Recently she and her mother have been sleeping in a car at night. Alice’s mother Sharra Roberts became homeless after she was evicted from her public housing property last year. Since then they have been staying with family members but the apartment they are in is overcrowded with nine people living in the three-bedroom unit. At night Sharra sleeps in a car outside often with Alice because there is no space inside. “I have trouble keeping her warm ... she can’t sleep away from me, I try to keep her inside but she starts screaming to come in the car,” Sharra said. Alice has asthma and chronic bacterial bronchitis and is often in and out of hospital. In a letter her paediatrician wrote supporting an application for urgent public housing she warned Alice was at higher risk of developing bronchiectasis — a chronic lung condition associated with reduced life expectancy “The current living arrangement is unsuitable due to overcrowding as there is a high risk of viral illnesses spreading between those that live in the home,” the doctor wrote. “It is also important for Alice to have some stability in terms of her living arrangements to ensure regular access to specialist health care professionals.” NUMBERS OF SHAME Alice is not the only child in WA experiencing homelessness. Entrypoint, the referral helpline for people who are homeless or facing homelessness which is funded by the WA Government, received 282 calls from single parents seeking help just in the month of May. And from January to June of this year Centrecare’s Family Accommodation Service, which provides medium-term accommodation to people who are homeless, received queries from 506 families. These families were made up of 597 adults and 1124 children. Due to housing shortages Centrecare was able to provide housing to just five of the 506 families who contacted them. The number of queries had increased 30 per cent from the six months prior where there were 389 inquiries. Centrecare director Adjunct Professor Tony Pietropiccolo, whose organisation also runs Entrypoint, said it was distressing for staff to get cries for help but then have limited accommodation to refer people to. “The staff find it very difficult to listen to people’s quite harrowing stories but then are unable to provide them with options. These are not just stories, these are people in highly-vulnerable life circumstances,” he said. Professor Pietropiccolo released extracts of recent requests for help made to Entrypoint from mothers with children. “I have been homeless now for 10 days, my lease expired and owners are selling. I’m actively seeking a rental but no luck,” one woman told the service. “Fortunately my children have been able to stay with their dad most nights but my options are really thin and I find myself having to sleep in my car ... I miss having my children with me dearly.” Another said: “Mother and four kids homeless and needing immediate accommodation. Family staying with abusive ex-partner ... need a safe place for me and the kids to live.” Professor Pietropiccolo said the recent lifting on the moratorium of evictions and the housing boom was putting more families at risk of homelessness, but there had also been a long-term underinvestment in social housing. “How do we morally justify leaving children in distressing situations like this?” he said. “This isn’t something that happened overnight. This is a failure of Government over, I would say, at least a period of 20 years.” Lindsay Hale, Communities executive director of service delivery, said the department “is aware of the challenges created by current housing market pressures and is working to support those affected”. “Communities already invests more than $100 million in specialist services and programs for people experiencing homelessness each year,” he said. INNOCENT VICTIMS Evictions from both private and public housing can leave children in dire situations. Sharra Roberts says she and her children were evicted from their public housing last year after her then 14-year-old son had an altercation with the neighbours. She is now barred from accessing further public housing. Ms Roberts says she has also been charged with assault but is seeking to have the charges dropped. When she was first evicted Sharra and her children stayed in their grandmother’s caravan but this was destroyed in a fire. Since then she has stayed at the overcrowded unit, hotel rooms and in her mother’s car. As well as impacting Alice’s health, it has made it difficult for her seven-year-old daughter Shirleah to attend school. A senior hospital social worker warned that Sharra and her kids were vulnerable to chronic homelessness. Sharra is on the disability pension and says when she was evicted she did not have legal representation. She says she missed the court hearing because Alice was having surgery. Mr Hale said Ms Roberts had been evicted following serious disruptive behaviour, which resulted in a bailiff eviction. “Earlier this month, Communities approved Ms Roberts for a bond assistance loan to support a private rental application. This provides an interest-free loan to cover the bond amount and the first two weeks’ rent,” he said. Sharra said she had been applying for private rentals but had been unsuccessful. Circle Green Community Legal’s tenancy managing solicitor Alice Pennycott said they were getting about 20 queries per week from people with children regarding evictions. Most were people renting in the private market who had been given “without grounds” evictions because their landlords were wanting to cash in on the current housing boom. “These people aren’t having success in securing alternative accommodation and most of the crisis and support services are at capacity,” she said. Ms Pennycott said most public housing evictions they saw related to rental arrears, but in those related to destructive behaviour advocates wanted to see early interventions put in place by Communities so it didn’t get to the point where a family with children was evicted. Another mother whose public housing tenancy was not renewed in 2016 told The Sunday Times she and her 14-year-old daughter were currently homeless. The mother has been on the priority waitlist for nearly two years. At one point she was living at her mother’s one-bedroom unit where there were up to 10 people. More recently she has been living at her father’s two-bedroom home where there are a total of six people. The 14-year-old is meant to be in State care living with a kinship carer, but has “self-placed” with her mother. In a letter provided to The Sunday Times, the teenager said she was due to have surgery soon and was worried about having a stable place to heal. “For the past two years I’ve been travelling from house to house with my mother,” the teenager wrote. “I’ve been trying to get to school every day but it’s been hard because of all the travelling and I’m never stabled (sic) in one house. I would be going for surgery soon on both my legs and need a stable place for me to heal.” Mr Hale said the teenager was “residing with her approved family carer”. He said her mother was “well placed on the wait list and Communities will contact her when a suitable property becomes available”. NEVER HAD ANYWHERE STABLE Other services which specifically support young people facing homelessness also say they are being forced to turn people away because of an influx of demand. Anglicare WA youth housing services — which support young people aged 14-26 — has seen demand for housing support rise between 10 and 30 per cent in 2021 compared to last year. There has been a significant increase in demand from young families and from young Aboriginal people, which cannot be met due to accommodation shortage. The First Nations Homelessness Project, which specialises in preventing evictions of Aboriginal families and has been running since 2017, also faces closure after the Federal Government did not renew its funding, claiming it was a State responsibility. The service says it has supported 344 families since 2017 with only 11 eviction prevention efforts unsuccessful. Ngalla Maya Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Mervyn Eades called for the State Government to step in and fund the project. “This is not a rental squeeze. This is a housing emergency that deprives vulnerable families of the basic human right of somewhere safe to raise their children,” he said. Mr Hale, however, said: “Communities has not received a formal application for funding from First Nations Homelessness Project for any previous advertised tenders.” Mission Australia’s Youth Accommodation Support Services (YASS) in Perth is also feeling the demand with an increasing number of referrals coming from hospitals. In the six months to December the service, which largely accommodates under 18s, had 220 queries. Of the 220 they were only able to accommodate 23 young people. Dixie Bonney was accommodated through YASS and is a shining example of what can happen when the right supports are put in place. At 16, Dixie became homeless following a family dispute. She turned to an aunt who was also homeless and the pair spent several months moving between different family members’ homes. “I didn’t know where I would be staying or what would happen, or if I went to school if I could go back to the same house,” Dixie said. This was until Dixie’s school put her in touch with Mission Australia who provided her with crisis accommodation at YASS. She was then able to move to a transitional unit which was on the same site. Dixie, who is a proud Wongi and Yamatji woman, graduated Year 12 last year and has since moved into public housing with her aunt and younger sister. She now has a full-time job with BHP and a part-time job at Domino’s. “At the moment that takes up a lot of my time, but that is kind of adding to my dream of owning a house one day,” she said. “I’ve never really had anywhere stable to live and my mum never owned a place and I never really knew much about my dad’s situation. Something I really want, is to own a house so I know my kids and my grandkids, eventually, will have somewhere that they know is going to be home.” Mission connected Dixie with a case worker while she was in crisis accommodation who worked with Dixie on her goals. “A year ago I wouldn’t talk to people if they didn’t talk to me. It’s definitely brought me out of my shell,” she said. Dixie said she wanted to share her story to provide hope to those who might be in similar situations. “I’d like to see more awareness about these kinds of places,” she said. “(If you are in the same situation) don’t give up, because what you want to happen will eventually happen if you stick to it.”

investigationInvestigation: Perth’s soaring rental prices see parents and children sleeping in cars as families evicted

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Investigation: Perth’s soaring rental prices see parents and children sleeping in cars as families evicted