Residents left In the dark

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By Boy Louade | Mon, 19/07/2010 - 10:53 |   3 comments
Recently, yarraReporter has noticed an increase in stories about residents and their housing maintenance issues. One such resident was left without power for a week during a flooding of her home while her flat was still in need of repairs.
 
When contacted, the Office of Housing had little to say on the general issue of delay on repairs and would only comment on specific repair requests. Upon further investigation, we were able to talk to a staff member of the DoH who told us that they were not responsible for any delays as they hire independent contractors to carry out the residential repairs.
 
As a resident of Fitzroy housing estate in the city of Yarra, yarraReporter feels that the Office of Housing need to be keener about people’s residential repair problems. People who live in the housing in the City of Yarra need to be assisted accordingly, rather than being ignored.
 
The resident who was mentioned without power for a week experienced this problem back in May. This resident was in the middle of an emergency situation where their apartment was flooding due to water leakage from the apartment above. She was looking for help and instead was left helpless for two days without power.

That is when the resident was forced – a mother with two children - to leave the flat and stay at her friend’s flat for nearly a month. The power wasn’t restored to her flat for nearly 5 days and when it was restored there was no explanation given about the extended delay in repair. The power disruption was not the main problem.

The big issue was the carpet was very wet and stinky and she thought that by reporting to the DoH they could change the stinky carpet or at least clean it.  But yet again she was left hopeless as her repair request has not yet being acted upon. Now this resident is left wondering about her future in the State Housing. yarraReporter hasn’t heard if the issue has been fixed yet. During further questioning of the Office of Housing – they told us that they use independent contractors to address all request for residential repairs.

yarraReporter is aware of situations where residents have been told to stay home to wait for the contractor and then the no-one has turned up and the residents have wasted a day waiting for them.

We told The Office of Housing about these issues, as it seems that the department need to look at these issues more deeply. In the future, the department should be seeking more effective ways to manage maintenance in public housing to fix residents’ issues and prevent further problems from arising.

Comments

Mon, 09/08/2010 - 15:46 — Rag (not verified)

Rags have been effective

It's quite bizarre that a resident led action group on all 3 major public housing estates in the City of Yarra have not been mentioned on this forum or have been reported on. Several meetings with the Minister and senior DHS managers produced astounding results. Also, these resident action groups (RAGS) have expressed an opinion in national and local media ie. Today Tonight, Age, Sun Herald, Melbourne Times etc. and the publicity produced satisfactory results for public housing residents. Lift issues and Refurbished unit issues have been dealt with promptly by the OoH after meetings with this group in Fitzroy. And I fully agree with Fitzroyalty, name and shame seems to be an effective tool for residents with burning, unresolved issues after all else fails. The question is, why YReporter failed to pick up on these stories that other media reported on? There were many important issues raised in the past 6 months in the City of Yarra regarding public housing, some of which affected a lot more people than just this incident in a single unit. Or is it the old case of 'never bite the hand that feeds you'?

Mon, 26/07/2010 - 13:49 — Boy Louade (not verified)

thank you very much for

thank you very much for showing support to my article, also I'll be continue writing the follow up on the same story..

it's been a pleasure. and thank you for your Co-operation

Kind Regards
B. Louade

Mon, 19/07/2010 - 11:40 — Fitzroyalty (not verified)

Name and shame

I find the best way to get results from poor customer service is to name and shame the offending agency into action. You could visit these suffering tenants and take photos of the lack of repairs and publish them each day until the DoH starts taking your complaints seriously.

You have to change the balance of power so that it is easier for the DoH to solve your problems than it is for them to ignore you. Make it impossible for them to ignore you by inviting the media in to see the problems.