And now, the assessment of Australia’s remote Indigenous housing program
After many years of rolling out the $5.5 billion remote Indigenous housing program, (SIHIP being the Northern Territory part of the national program) the first assessment of what has been delivered has been released.
This is not about how much was spent, not about the number of houses built BUT about the people living in the houses, how well the houses function and how are they being managed and maintained under the new public housing model, imposed as a pre-condition of the funding made available to build and renovate the houses.
The brief summary of the post occupancy review’s conclusions follow. You may discern some items that have been raised on this website over the last few years.
Tangentyere Council has released the first independent and comprehensive post occupancy evaluation of SIHIP housing in the Northern Territory, resulting in over 30 practical recommendations for action by householders, service providers and Governments.
- Limited decision-making capacity of the Housing Reference Groups
- Lack of transparency in the money story
- Inappropriate design of new houses in relation to climate
- Poor material selection for walls of new houses
- Lack of consideration for disability access
- Lack of storage spaces for everything
- Poorly constructed yard drainage
- Confused and unresponsive tenancy management regime
- Confused and unresponsive property management regime
- Poor coordination of infrastructure and building works
- The lack of responsiveness in the public housing model to tenants’ needs, in contrast to Tangentyere Council’s previous community housing model that had been more immediately responsive and transparent
The report can be found on Tangentyere Council’s website:
http://www.tangentyere.org.au/publications/#research_reports
