letter no 1 Social Impact Letter.
Introduction: You can help!
You can help with this campaign by writing to Housing and Homelessness Minister Rose Jackson.
We have prepared two letters dealing with the social and environmental consequences of demolishing public housing. Please use them to send your own letters to Minister Jackson as soon as you can.
Go to the Minister’s Contact page https://www.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government/ministers/minister-for-water-housing-homelessness-mental-health-youth-and-north-coast
or
use her email address.
Here is the first letter
Minister for Housing and Homelessness
Parliament House
Macquarie Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
office@jackson.minister.nsw.gov.au
Dear Rose Jackson
It is vital that the habitable building at 82 Wentworth Park Road, Glebe not be demolished but be filled with tenants immediately. This complex is completely empty which is shameful with so many homeless camped a few minutes away across the road.
The department is well able to refurbish the complex and fill it with tenants.
Demolishing and rebuilding will take years. Look at the building on the corner of Cowper Street and Wentworth Park Road which the Land and Housing Corporation demolished with so little due diligence that the building site is at a standstill while environmental issues have to be dealt with.
I question whether LAHC has researched 82 Wentworth Park Road any better.
LAHC claims that their proposal “provides acceptable amenity for the future residents.” I challenge that. The proposed new building is a cramped, unfriendly design but this is where LAHC proposes to put the most stressed and vulnerable in our society.
Many apartments will get very little sunlight but sunlight is vital for good mental health. This should be reason enough for you to reject this appalling proposal.
There are only small flats in the proposed new building. LAHC claims that this reflects the social housing needs for our area. On what basis do they justify that? Are there no women fleeing domestic violence? No extended family groups? No Aborgines? All these will be excluded from the new building by design.
The proposed building will have air-con units and subject the poor to large power bills and more environmental waste.
Public housing tenants, like everyone in our society, should live in well-designed properties. The existing building can be adapted for better access as many flats have single entrances and front yards. All have sunlight and are well ventilated.
Please do not allow this public housing complex to be demolished – it would be vandalism by the state.
Yours sincerely,