RESOURCE/ADVOCACY: Broken by Design Report: housing maintenance in the Kimberley
Broken by Design: housing maintenance in the Kimberley
Kimberley Community Legal Services (KCLS) has released a new report, Broken by Design: Public Housing Maintenance in the Kimberley.
The report shares the experiences of 166 public housing tenants across 22 locations in the Kimberley and looks at a simple question: how can we do housing maintenance better?
Image – Broken by Design findings
Report Findings
The KCLS survey found:
- Nearly 70% of tenants were still waiting for repairs (Broken by Design, p.4)
- The 2025 WA Auditor General’s report found that approximately 85% of maintenance is reactive, meaning most work happens after something has already broken, rather than through regular checks and planned maintenance. (Broken by Design, p.21)
- Around $250 million has been spent on travel and overhead costs associated with housing maintenance since 2019. (2025 WA Auditor General, cited in Broken by Design, p.4)
KCLS also raises concerns with WA’s centralised Head Maintenance Contract model, where a head contractor manages maintenance work through layers of subcontractors. The report calls for a more local approach, with maintenance managed and delivered closer to the communities and people living in the houses.
Image – Maintenance reporting process mapping in the report
Check every house and fix
The report has 7 recommendations, recommendation 2 calls for planned and preventative maintenance, including regular cyclical maintenance and a Survey–Fix approach based on Housing for Health.
The idea is simple: check every house, find what is not working and fix urgent health and safety problems as you go.
Regular checks help find small problems before they become bigger and more expensive problems. Build local skills, jobs and keep houses working.
Building the evidence from the Kimberley
Broken by Design follows KCLS’s earlier report, Stuck in the Heat: Lived Experiences of Public Housing Tenants in the Kimberley.
Stuck in the Heat documented how poor housing condition, overcrowding, maintenance problems and high energy costs make it harder for people to stay safe and healthy in Kimberley heat.
Together, the reports provide important evidence directly from people living in public housing across the Kimberley about what is not working and what needs to change.
