Housing Support
Jimmy’s Caravan
Jimmy is in his 80’s. He lived in a rundown caravan park for 30 years in a freezing/boiling caravan, traipsing to the communal toilet every night, until finally being forced out when the park was being ‘upgraded’ to ‘boutique living‘. While HAAG’s Retirement Housing team was working with residents to make sure there rights were… …
Posted in: Client Stories, Caravan Parks, Retirement Housing Advice Service
John and Max
For 14 years John* was living in a private rental flat attached to a bottle shop in Brunswick West. Throughout his years of living there, he recalled only a handful of times that his landlord visited the property. Many of his requests for maintenance of the property, including water flooding through the ceiling when it rained, were ignored… …
Posted in: Client Stories, Pets, Public Housing, Brokerage support
A Human of Public Housing
HAAG’s client Jen featured in the Federation of Community Legal Centre’s Humans of Public Housing Project – see her photo story below View this post on Instagram “I just feel so lucky to have a home. Everyone deserves to have the opportunity that I have had…” Jen moved in her unit over a year… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories, Public Housing
Elsa & Jacinto’s “Home at Last”
At the end of 2017 Elsa and Jacinto experienced for first time the anxiety and desperation of not finding a place to live after receiving a 60 days notice to vacate. All their efforts to find a private rental property during that time were unsuccessful. They believe that their age (60+), low income, and having… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories
Rena’s “Home at Last”
Rena* (71 Years Old) was sharing accommodation with students due to her lack of housing affordability. The students she lived with were untidy and left her to clean up after them. They frequently left food in the fridge until it became rotten. This affected Rena’s food supplies making her food inedible. Rena experienced abusive and… …
Posted in: Client Stories
Peter the Tailor
Peter migrated to Australia in 1965 with his wife and children from former Yugoslavia, now Croatia. opened and ran his small tailoring business for many years in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Upon retirement, Peter and his wife decided to move back to Croatia to be closer to extended family and old friends. However, whilst… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories, Croatian – Hrvatski, Care Finder
Ali from Iraq
Ali was born in Iraq and arrived in Australia in 1980. He was in car accident in the early 80s which resulted in extensive injuries including broken leg, and damage to his jaw making speech difficult. He lodged an application on 13/11/1988 for public housing and was on the general waiting list for over 20… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories, Public Housing
Mary Ann gets the FUN back in life
This is a story of one of the first clients housed through our Barwon region Home at Last Outreach service, which expanded into this regional area in July 2017 following receiving growth funding from the Commonwealth Home Support Program. Originally from Melbourne, Mary-Ann moved to regional Victoria in search of more affordable private rental. Around… …
Posted in: Client Stories, Community Housing
Mary’s “Home at Last”
Mary (55) an Arabic speaking refugee, had been living in an Rooming house for the last 5 years- She was in very poor health and on the Disability pension. She paid $220 per week for the use of a converted lounge room, shared with a number of strangers. There were a lot of people coming… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories, Community Housing, Elder Rights, Brokerage support
Slavko, Vesna and Irena
Social, cultural and linguistic diversity are characteristic of modern, inclusive and globally connected cities such as Melbourne. For generations Melbourne’s suburbs have been shaped by cultures and people from all around the world. The Italians went to Carlton, the Greeks found Richmond and the Vietnamese made Footscray home. People often choose to live close to… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories
From a black-hole to a super-highway
Terrence presented to service with an eviction notice for rent arrears. He was on a low income due to personal reasons which was not enough to cover his high rent. Our tenancy worker Shane advocated for Terrence over a period of 1.5 years to help him maintain his tenancy, whilst our outreach team worked with… …
Posted in: Client Stories, Missing Middle, Public Housing, Tenancy
Qinhui’s “Home at Last”
Qinhui was 70 years old and was referred to us by Chinese Social Services for housing support due to end of private rental lease and inability to secure alternative accommodation. Qinhui came from China in 2014 and speaks little English. She had been transient for a while following a relationship breakdown with family who she… …
Posted in: Multicultural & Multifaith Communities, Client Stories, Simplified Chinese – 普通话