A personal view of Australian and International Politics : 'It's public housing or my car': Longriver and the caravan park residents facing homelessness

Monday 15 May 2017

'It's public housing or my car': Longriver and the caravan park residents facing homelessness

Wantirna caravan park residents say the developer is driving out hundreds of people who previously had stable housing

The property developer Longriver creates “extraordinary spaces” and builds “lasting value and relationships” in communities, according to its mission statement.
One of the latest patches of land bought by Longriver is Wantirna caravan park, 24km east of Melbourne’s central business district. It sits in the City of Knox, where nearly 80% of homes are either fully owned or mortgaged, and where the unemployment rate of 4.2% sits below the national average.
The 189 residents of Wantirna caravan park are struggling to see how the mission statement applies to them, having been informed late last year that the land beneath them had been sold to make way for 300 townhouses. Their caravans, which they had lovingly turned into homes, have been left worthless. Many have nowhere to go.
Longriver has told residents not to worry if they are unable to find the money to move their homes by January – about $10,000. If they cannot afford to move, their homes will be demolished free of charge, an offer made in a letter that residents say was framed as an amicable gesture aimed at alleviating their concerns. In the meantime, Longriver has substantially increased rents, a move some residents say is a bid to force them out faster. Legislation in some states and territories offers protections for people living in caravan parks, including rules around development, but no such laws exist in Victoria.
Wantirna caravan park is wedged between tree-lined cul-de-sacs boasting double-storey houses. Driving past the park along the Mountain Highway, it would be easy to think of it as a small slice of peaceful land for holidaymakers or caravaners passing through.
But an entry road extends deep into into the park where it branches out into a series of smaller roads named after apple varieties – Delicious Court, Granny Smith Road – in a nod to the land’s history as an apple orchard. And it is on these streets that the immaculately kept permanent caravans and units can be found.
Some have built makeshift but sturdy extensions on to their caravans and units. Others have developed lush gardens filled with flowers and fruit trees. Many of these people have worked full-time most of their lives, as cooks, cleaners, truck drivers and in administration. And contrary to assumptions some of them say exist about people who make caravan parks their home, many have never been on welfare, aside from the aged pension.
For these people, buying a caravan for anything from $5,000 to $60,000, depending on when they bought, was a way to remain independent in a city where housing and mortgages were far beyond their reach, allowing them to avoid an endless and insecure cycle of renting, or succumbing to government housing or homelessness. Some have been living quietly in the park for decades.
The problem is, while they may own their homes, they don’t own the land underneath them.

‘I’ve asked the government for nothing all my life’

Pat Whitelaw has been a resident of Wantirna park for 17 years. She affectionally refers to her street at the very back of the park as “Little Toorak”, in reference to the leafy suburb of inner Melbourne, which has become synonymous with old wealth and privilege.
In the past few months, Whitelaw has lost more than seven kilograms. Once she is forced to leave, “it’s either public housing or my car”, the 76 year-old says.
Whitelaw raised her two sons on her own by working as a cook at Melbourne restaurants. Once her boys moved out and had families of their own, her mother became unwell. Whitelaw kept working and moved in with her mother, becoming her primary carer. Her father was in a nursing home.

Wantirna caravan park, east of Melbourne. Photograph: Melissa Davey for the Guardian

“I was working two shifts at the time, morning until afternoon, and then I’d have a short break before the night shift,” Whitelaw says.
“In the morning I would get mum up out of bed and give her her shower and make her breakfast, a cup of tea with tinfoil on top to keep it warm, and I’d make sure her lunch was prepared. Then I would go to work and then race home during my break between shifts to get her dinner and put the dishes in the sink and get her ready for bed. Then I’d go back to work for the night shift. Then I’d come home late at night and do the dishes, and wake up during the night to help mum go to the toilet.”
Whitelaw’s voice breaks as she recalls the doctor eventually telling her she needed to give up work to become her mother’s full-time primary carer, or put her into a home. It was an easy choice.
“I cared for her for five-and-a-half years, until she passed away in 2000,” Whitelaw says. By this time, entering her 60s, Whitelaw struggled to find full-time work. She used a small inheritance to buy a humble unit at Wantirna, where she has remained ever since, nurturing a stunning garden of cyclamens, roses and ferns around her.
She has also helped to care for her neighbours as they grew old, became sick and died, relieving community services and taxpayers of a considerable cost. Now, she can’t afford to move her unit to another park.
“I bought to come into the park because that was all I could afford, and I did it on my own,” Whitelaw says. “I’ve asked the government for nothing all my life. I have worked and got it all myself. My boys went to good schools and colleges and I worked hard to get them there. They’re in no position to help me, nor would I want them to.
“It’s not a mansion. But it’s my home.”

Those who live in the in-between

For these people, a developer buying up land and adding to housing stock might seem welcome.
But, according to Peter Gray, a Wantirna resident of 27 years, by building hundreds of apartments, Longriver is also driving out hundreds of people who have been in stable housing and now face homelessness.
Gray has formed the Wantirna Residents Action Group (Wrag). The motto for the group, “A red WRAG to a bulldozer”, is written on all their letters. The administrators of the group include Whitelaw and two other long-term residents of the park and on many nights the four can be found gathered around Gray’s computer, plotting on a map who has left the park, highlighting areas occupied by full-time, short-term and casual residents, and writing to councillors and politicians.

Wantirna caravan park resident Peter Gray examines a map of the park. Photograph: Melissa Davey

Gray has spent his life working as a circus performer and clown, travelling around the country with his shows and performing for school groups. He has built an extension to his Wantirna unit to rehearse and suspended across the middle is a wobbly wire where he practises balancing while spinning hula hoops from his arms.
“I’ve never been money-driven,” the 66-year-old says. “I’ve been driven by my love of the arts and being able to share those talents with kids and audiences.”
He and the others want legislation to protect caravan parks, though they know any such measure will be too late for them. They also believe developers who stand to make millions of dollars from housing sales should offer compensation to vulnerable residents by covering relocation costs or buying their units and caravans.

Stephanie Templeton bought her unit in the park 12 years ago for $35,000.
“I thought it had beautiful dark granite bench-tops but, when I began scrubbing it, it was just dirt,” Templeton, 70, says. Now it is pristine, with clean white walls and clear surfaces. Until the land was sold last year, she was thinking of putting it on the market for about $90,000 but now it is worth nothing.
This will be the fourth home Templeton has lost. She spent much of her career doing office work and managed to buy a house with a partner a few decades ago. He was abusive and Templeton felt the only way to escape and ensure her safety was to walk away without leaving a trace.
She worked hard to afford a mortgage on “a cute little house in Frankston” in the early 1990s, just before recession hit. Interest rates soared to 17%.
“I tried and I tried to make the repayments but everything crashed around me,” she says. “So the bank took it.”
She moved in with her sick father and cared for him until he died. Her siblings decided to sell the home after his death and, with her share of the sale, Templeton bought her unit in Wantirna.
“If I lose this, I will never own another home,” Templeton says. She is reluctant to accept government housing, because it would mean being left with nothing of her own.
“For a lot of us, whether through tragedy or break-up of the family, this is all we could get,” Templeton says. “Some of us have spent a little bit more over the years renovating them and extending them. There is nowhere else affordable for us to go.”

A glimmer of hope

A developer who has bought up a neighbouring caravan park has arrived wanting to interview Gray about his situation and that of the other residents in the park.

Peter Gray puts on a show for the residents at Wantirna in his studio. Photograph: Melissa Davey

The developer, who can’t be named for legal reasons, has bought a caravan park a couple of hours away.
Unlike Longriver, he has committed to leaving every long-term resident in place and incorporating social housing as a key aspect of his planned development. And, after hearing about the situation facing Wantirna residents, he has found room in his plans for 20 more units.
It is not enough to save all of those losing their homes at Wantirna. But it is a glimmer of hope. The developer now has the difficult task of interviewing the park residents and choosing which of those he can offer space to. He is also attempting to get state government and other funding to help with relocation costs.
He doesn’t want to comment on Longriver. It has done nothing illegal in buying land, and nor has the council, given the land is marked as residential and they have no grounds for refusing development. Other caravan parks have been sold all around the state – hundreds of people face homelessness.
“It’s just life,” he says. “The developer saw an opportunity and took it. But I run a company that specialises in affordable dwellings and I do things differently. When I heard everyone was getting kicked out of Wantirna, I thought I’d duck in and ask the people living here some questions. Well of course, they gave me tea and biscuits and cake, and I saw that the places they have kept here are absolutely beautiful. They’re immaculate.
“And they’re all good people.”
He says he grew up in a family that did it tough and found the situation of the Wantirna residents heartbreaking.
But as a businessman he also has to ensure his park becomes a thriving community, one that people interested in the housing he is also building on the land want to buy into.
He wants a certain type of person from Wantirna – those who have come into hardship despite their hard work and who don’t “cause trouble”.
“I’m not a social worker,” he says. “But I am aware of the massive need for social housing and I feel I can do a good thing here, so I am.”
Despite multiple phone calls and emails, Longriver did not respond to a request for comment.
Long-term resident Charlie Galvert, who bought his caravan more than a decade ago for about $4,500, reckons that, when the bulldozers come, he will be prepared to hire a bulldozer of his own and “I’ll go after his place and see how he likes it”, he says, referring to Longriver executives.
For six years he has worked as a crossing attendant twice a day at a nearby school. He fears being unable to make it to the job if he is forced to move far away.
“I love it, I know the kids and the parents, I’ve watched them all grow up,” he says.

Long-term Wantirna caravan park resident Charlie Galvert, who bought his caravan more than a decade ago for about $4,500. Photograph: Peter Gray/Wantirna Residents Action Group

A former truck driver, Galvert was forced to retire after having a stroke. He bought into the park to look after his mother, who lived in a caravan nearby until she died. He lives a simple life in his van, he says, surrounded by his Elvis memorabilia and with a tattered Australian flag stuck firm on the roof.
“It’s not the world’s greatest place but I don’t care,” he says. “It’s my castle.”

‘They have worked hard their entire lives’

The chief executive of the Council to Homeless Persons, Jenny Smith, says caravan parks serve both as a long-term home for people on low incomes who have been pushed out of the housing market and as emergency accommodation through short-term rentals for people who are in crisis due to family violence, mental health issues, job loss or relationship breakdown.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 1,425 Victorians living in caravan parks needed help from homelessness services in 2014-15.
Smith hesitantly welcomes the news that some Wantirna residents may be able to move to a new park but emphasises that social services, not developers, should be helping to identify suitable candidates for relocation. Those with alcohol and other drug problems and mental illnesses should be equally entitled to assistance, she says.
Ultimately, the private sector cannot be relied upon to provide social hosuing, Smith says. “Governments must ensure we have a housing supply for those on the lowest incomes.”

A Victorian government spokesman tells Guardian Australia the government “prided itself on its care and compassion for those less fortunate”.
“We know that sometimes residents of caravan parks are doing it tough,” he says.
He says the government is working on a plan to give stronger protections to caravan park residents but does not detail the provisions that would be put in place or when they would take effect.
“We have to make the most of land we already have, so we’re piloting a new program where we work with developers and sell them government land at a discounted rate in exchange for a portion of public and social housing,” he says.
The government is also piloting an inclusionary housing project on surplus government land, which it expects to deliver up to 100 new social housing homes. Support has been provided for pilot sites to go to market by the end of 2017.
There are 33,000 people waiting for public housing in Victoria and 206,000 Australia-wide.
Knox City councillor Jackson Taylor, who is also a police officer, has been meeting residents of Wantirna regularly. He first heard their stories while campaigning for election last year and, unlike others running for council, included the caravan park in his door-knocking.
“I believe from my time involved in the park that the treatment of residents has been abhorrent,” he says.
He and other councillors met Longriver to implore them to help long-term residents without family members ready to step in and help them to move.
They said very little during the meeting, Taylor says, and he was yet to hear of any further developments.
“Ultimately I believe [Longriver] is just the face of a larger contingency of backers involved in this project,” he tells Guardian Australia.
Taylor has tried to co-ordinate assistance for residents with legal, housing and other welfare services but says they are already overstretched.
“I’m really sad about it,” he says. “But that’s not to say more can’t be done and I really hope a strong community campaign will arise from this to help these people.
“I think there is a real lack of respect for people who live in caravan parks. But, every person from the park I have met, 100% of them are decent people who just want to live their lives.
“They have worked hard their entire lives. They found an affordable housing solution that worked for them, they have been part of the solution. So I despise the misconceptions that can exist around people who live in these parks.
“They are decent human beings but they are not being treated that way. And although [Longriver] hasn’t done anything illegal, I think that [they owe it] to the community to be part of coming up with an amicable solution and a fair and reasonable compensation package. I really hope we can work together to do that.”

A personal view of Australian and International Politics