Public housing concerns

A disgruntled Roebourne resident has spoken out about what she describes as poor living conditions and lack of maintenance experienced in the public housing property her family was moved into last year.

Ther tenant raised concerns with a host of issues, including water-damaged and mouldy walls in children's bedrooms, graffiti and spilled paint on the fences and driveway.

Documentation provided to the Pilbara News showed the damage was present at the house before the current occupants moved in and the Department of Housing was aware of these issues.

Tenant Jallisa Miller said she had paid to repair damage caused by the previous occupants out of her own pocket.

Ms Miller said she should not have to report damages of which the department was already aware and they should have been fixed before her family moved in.

"(The mould) goes into my daughter's room, so she doesn't even sleep in there because it smells," she said.

"I'm battling to pay my own bills and having to buy my kids things."

Ms Miller said she had been trying to request a transfer back to South Hedland for more than a month but the Department of Housing had not yet looked at her application.

Department of Housing general manager Greg Cash said significant maintenance was completed two weeks before Ms Miller moved into the house and maintenance had been ongoing since then.

"Plumbing works were carried out in 2014 and 2015 at no charge to the tenant and were completed within required timeframes," he said.

"The only tenant liability on the tenant's record relates to a broken window and replacement of a door lock due to lost keys.

"The property was inspected on March 13, 2015, to ensure the safety of the tenant, that the tenant is meeting their tenancy obligations and to identify required maintenance."

Mr Cash said staff conducted another inspection of the property last Friday to follow up on any maintenance issues.

Njamal elder and Ms Miller's grandmother Doris Eaton said the standard of public housing needed to be addressed urgently if remote communities were to lose funding.

"They're talking about moving people into town into these sort of homes?" she said.

"These homes are not liveable for anybody. I've come off a community - Yandeyarra, which is our homeland - and kids were safe and we design our own homes, and if anything was fixed we usually paid for it.

"Put the (government) staff in these sorts of homes and put your clients in the nice homes to see how they feel."

Ms Eaton said policymakers had provided no certainty as to how indigenous people would be treated, where they would be placed and who would look after them if they were moved from communities into public housing in town.