Failed Housing Minister Roger Jaensch has delivered yet another cruel blow to Tasmanians looking for a roof over their head by ordering them to turn to their families for help.
Shadow Housing Minister Alison Standen said the government had deviously distributed reforms to the Housing Connect program which would confuse and anger Tasmanians seeking social housing and falsely keep the housing wait list from growing by outsourcing the problem.
Ms Standen said the most shocking change the Liberal Government and Mr Jaensch were imposing was a bid to reduce the housing waiting list by recommending:
"Where possible, divert people from the Housing Connect system into familial/community level supports if they have minimal service needs and high capability."
"That's weasel language that means the government is now telling people if you are waiting on a house, give up and go and knock on a relative's door," Ms Standen said.
"That means the government is now clear that it will not look after you if you have nowhere to live and are at risk of homelessness - they want you to find a relative who might have some space in the lounge room.
"It's a shonky move. Roger Jaensch will point to a housing waitlist that isn't getting longer, simply because he's kicking people off that list.
"It's state sponsored couch surfing as the answer to people who are already facing a bleak future.
"This is a Minister who has built just five social housing properties in the past year and who is presiding over a housing wait list of 3,373 and counting. This is a Minister who doesn't deliver.
"This is a Minister who has no right running this crucial area of government because he doesn't care, he has no answer to a crisis of his own making and his solution to a growing waitlist is to force people off it."
Alison Standen MP
Shadow Minister for Housing
