by John Hughes - NAALAS (Northern Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service)
The residents of Fish Camp clearly need housing. Existing alternatives will not work practically. A project tailored to the residents' special needs is required. The residents' special needs dictate the nature of the project for which funding is sought. This project has four objectives...
Objective 1
To house the residents of Fish Camp, a group of long term Darwin residents who have been without any form of housing almost continually for about 13 years.
Objective 2
To house a core family group of Aboriginal people with fluctuating extended family, and medium term visitors.
People who also call Fish Camp "home"
Objective 3
To establish an appropriate, self-managed and affordable form of housing.
Objective 4
To provide permanent access to medical, telephone, social particularly health and other services. The need for these has already been explained under Objective 2 The Problem Now heading.
These objectives are readily met with the establishment of a fixed address, and telephone service.
Objective 1
To house the residents of Fish Camp, a group of long term Darwin residents who have been without any form of housing almost continually for about 13 years.
Dulcie Malimara's Story
Anyway, we had a Housing Commission house and we was in a house for nearly 19 years. And my people come along making a lot of noise so I get kicked out. But I was in the hospital when my kids got kicked out. My kids was staying in the house. I had injury neck, I had injury leg. My kids was in the house but no-one didn't look after them. Somebody came along I mean my people, they came along, and making a lot of noise. My kids got kicked out. And I was in the hospital, and when I came out it wasn't there. And that's my big problem. Didn't want to go back in the Housing Commission. I'm happy staying outside so I can sing, dance, cry whatever I like. So I'm free enough to stay here. The Housing Commision, it's really hard. You can't even take your family. It's really hard for us to go back in a Housing Commission, cause I tried that a lot of times. I told my people not to make noise cause that house, it wasn't mine. Neighbours complaining, it was really hard for me and my kids. But I had all my kids in Darwin, and I've been in Darwin when I was 17. Even my brother..., and my other brother he's blind, he can't see... they was walking when they was young boys, walking from Maningrida to Darwin, and we've been staying in Darwin all our lives. And we're still here. That's my story.
Dulcie and her sisters and brothers were born in Arnhemland during and just after World War II. Some moved as children or young teen-agers to Darwin in the 1950's. They retain connections with their home country near Maningrida, and some have traditional responsibility for certain territory there, but they have been Darwin residents for decades. Dulcie has lived in Darwin since 1966, when she went into Royal Darwin Hospital to bear her first child Marietta (32 years old). She has been a permanent Darwin resident for 32 years and has brought up all her children here. When she moved to Darwin, Dulcie lived a caravan park on the outskirts of Darwin, and then moved to another. After cyclone Tracey (1974) the Housing Commission built houses for low-income people, and provided Dulcie's immediate family with a house in Moil suburb.
Dulcie lived in that house for many years, until she went into hospital. Family members came to Darwin to visit her in hospital and look after her young children, and stayed in her house. No-one ensured rent was paid. The visiting family members, un-accustomed to high-density living, caused too much noise. Dulcie's family was evicted.
When she left hospital, she was homeless. She and other members of the group have come together at or been dispersed to various undeveloped areas around Darwin. This has included lengthy stays at Lee Point (twice) and Marrara Creek and other publicly owned land in the hands of Commonwealth or Territory government agencies, which have generally moved them on after a few months. They were evicted very publicly from Lee Point a few years ago as trespassers. They have since 1995 lived at Fish Camp, with permission from the Kululuk Aboriginal Community, on condition they have no permanency of tenure and may not build any permanent structures such as water pipes or a septic system, or buildings using cement or tin, presumably because these structures might signify adverse possession, breach bye-laws or create similar legal difficulties. Fish Camp is its residents name for a makeshift shelter on the Kululuk land, near the sea, between the Darwin suburbs of Ludmilla and Coconut Grove, south-west of the Dick Ward Drive & Totem Road intersection.
The Kululuk Aboriginal people are the leaseholders of this land, and there are a number of more permanent Kululuk campsites. The Fish Camp people are not Kululuk, but the Kululuk have permitted them to live temporarily at Fish Camp, on condition that they build no permanent structures. While grateful to the Kululuk, Fish Camp residents have no assurance they can remain where they are, no proper shelter, water source or ablutions. The Fish Camp people have been evicted and moved on from other sites around Darwin over the past few years, and have no security of tenure beyond Kululuk goodwill.
Objective 2
To house a core family group of Aboriginal people with fluctuating extended family, and medium term visitors.
Core group members
The Fish Camp residents comprise a core group of 12 permanent residents, three couples and 6 single people, whose ages average 52 years of age and range from 40 to 67. About half of the group is infirm in some way. Two are near fully blind. One was crippled by leprosy and spent much of her life in a Darwin leprosareum before it was closed down. Those who are relatively healthy care for the others in various ways. The core group members are all closely related to Dulcie Malimara. This project aims to house this core group permanently.
People who also call Fish Camp "home"
In addition, other people regularly stay at Fish Camp for a few weeks or months, but have not stayed there permanently. These are mainly children or grandchildren of core group members, who also have no permanent accommodation. They are younger and healthier, and still looking for better places to live, but they tend to return to Fish Camp for want of alternatives, or to be with or to care for core group members. The core group members have identified 27 non-core people, ranging in age from 3 to 69, and averaging 33 years. In addition to housing the core group, this project treats these 27 people as a pool of people which also need decent stable housing. The project does not aim to house them all, but intends that the core group as permanent residents would be able to house some from the extended pool of people depending on individual circumstances, for periods of weeks, months or longer, but not as permanent core group members. The special needs of this extended clan will be reflected in the design of buildings to be constructed.
Also, legal arrangements (perhaps in the form of a lease between the Darwin Area Housing Association and the core residents) will be designed to ensure security of tenure for the core group (perhaps as tenants in common), with the core group having the right of exclusive possession and thus, the right to control which members of the extended pool of people may stay with them in the remaining facilities available.
Objective 3
To establish an appropriate, self-managed and affordable form of housing.
The Problem Now
A visit to Fish Camp would be very instructive. The residents of Fish Camp live in squalor of the kind human rights reports depict in third world refugee camps. Their problem goes to the fundamental purpose of housing. Some specific difficulties include:
(a) Many of Fish Camp's residents are frail and would qualify for "meals on wheels" and other services designed to help people look after themselves. But these services are not extended to Fish Camp. They have no easily found address, meaning volunteer drivers would probably get lost too often, and vehicle access is a little difficult;
(b) The residents have several times been disturbed by outsiders who have driven around their campsite at night or even in the day, and have driven through their camp. Unwelcome and unruly visitors disturb them and steal their food. The residents have no way of keeping such people away, no telephone for police, and no address to give to the police.
(c) Some residents are chronically ill. One of the reasons some live in Darwin is that they need regular treatment (e.g: kidney dialysis) not available elsewhere. Although much more hygienic, hospitals discourage visits by family groups and Aboriginal people tend to find them stressful places, and to leave them as soon as they can walk. Most residents are likely to need operations of various kinds and have experienced difficulty keeping their dressings clean in a place where there are no ablution facilities or clean places to recover from treatment.
(d) The residents have no refrigerator to keep their prescription medicine.
(e) Many of the residents are very likely to need emergency medical treatment, associated with complaints like very high blood pressure, epilepsy, recent Tuberculosis infection, general frailness and others. The residents have no way of calling an ambulance, and ambulance drivers have in the past found it difficult to find Fish Camp;
(f) Post is not delivered to the residents, making them unnecessarily dependent on friends acting as "care of" addresses. Some residents find this inconvenient and indignified, and must devote a full day to walking and taking a bus to check for post.
(g) The residents have no telephone to call taxis, minibuses or otherwise to arrange visits into Darwin for shopping, banking, medical treatment, having a shower, and other daily tasks.
(h) The residents have no power or permanent water supply, no secure place to store food, no refrigeration to keep food, and no clean place to cook food. They derive almost no nutritional value from the store-bought products left available to them in these circumstances pre-cooked fast food and could not afford this anyway. For proper nutrition, they depend upon, rather than merely supplement their diet with, fish and other bush food hunted and gathered on the coastal areas, meaning a large part of their time is spent merely collecting food.
Existing Housing Options
This group currently has no practical and real housing option. There are various ways low-income groups are housed, but current housing options do not, would not or indeed have demonstrably not worked for this group, because they do not take into account practical considerations dealt with below:
(a) Owner-Occupation: This group cannot afford to buy land or housing. They have no assets and their income level disqualifies them from borrowing on mortgage. Just like singles, couples and families on or near the poverty line, this group will not be housed without state assistance.
(b) Private Rental Market: It is not likely a private developer could be persuaded to design and build housing to fit the special needs of this group. Generally private rental accommodation is designed for single residents, couples and small nuclear families, and can be easily sold and re-let once a particular lease has come to an end. A special and necessarily non-mainstream form of housing would by its nature be unattractrive from a private investor's point of view;
(c) Town camps: These also accommodate Aboriginal people. Indeed, some in this group have lived at town camps at times. But town camps do not meet this group1s needs. According to some residents who have tried town camps, there are "Too many different groups, fighting between them, no control over who comes and goes, and new groups form and push out the old"
(d) Aboriginal Hostels: Members of this group point out Hostels do not offer a home environment. Indeed this is not their function. Extended families cannot stay together in Hostels. They are not sited near bushland, so there is no access to healthy food sources for this group.
(e) Housing Commission Housing: This has been the group's only alternative to homelessness. The Housing Commission is given the task of meeting state obligations under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements to accommodate low-income groups. The Commission offers flats, units and suburban houses designed for a fixed number of occupants, whether single tenants, couples or nuclear families. Judged from the style of dwellings available, the Commission's target group is clearly urban dwellers whose living needs differ little from those of people who can afford their own housing. Consequently, the Commission supplies flats for single people and couples , and houses for nuclear families, at rents they can afford. The accommodation is basically the same as that for people who own their own homes, or who can afford to rent privately. Historically, the Housing Commission and its inter-state equivalents have built and rented homes for lower income groups, and managed these properties. If a low-income applicant demonstrated he or she could not afford to buy or rent a private house, the state tried to supply a state-managed home at affordable, lower-than-market rent. Housing policy has shifted away from the notion of the state as owner and manager of houses. If a person demonstrates he cannot afford to buy or rent a private house, he would now be encouraged to rent privately, but receives a direct rental subsidy so that the state is effectively paying some of the rent. The subsidy "follows the person, not the stock", freeing government from the duties of a landlord and property manager. This new trend assumes the person1s only housing problem is affordability, and that appropriate housing can be found on the private rental market. But this group differs fundamentally from model or target tenants because:
(i) This is an extended family group, not a nuclear family, comprising a core permanent group of approximately twelve people. The group feeds and cares for some of its older, frail members, and for those who are sick, and deals with this as a group responsibility. The largest Housing Commission homes have four bedrooms, and would not provide the space needed for healthy living. Standard family homes and their fittings are not designed or built for heavy wear and tear from so many people.
(ii) The group often prepares food and eats together. The group's main source of nutritious food is shellfish, fish, stingrays, geese, kangaroo, goanna, which they gather themselves. This is usually cooked outside. Apartment balconies and house gardens are not designed for some of the activities associated with this diet, such as butchering game, large-scale cooking, and the noise of communal cooking. Neighbours in flats or suburban houses would tend to be offended, and these kinds of activities would tend inevitably to lead to breach of various lease terms, and city by-laws relating to fire safety.
(iii) The group lives outside as much as it can. Building structures are valued as shelter from the rain, as places to secure food and valuables, and as a secure place to sleep. Housing Commission homes feature family and other rooms as "living spaces" intended to be places of recreation. They often have carpeting, multifarious private rooms, European gardens and other features which many Housing Commission tenants would expect, but which this group do not need or find irksome. In contrast, verandas, secure fencing and an approved outdoor cooking area would be more useful to this group.
(iv) The group enjoys frequent group singing and dancing. Although a log-term Darwin resident, Dulcie Malimara retains the culture of her upbringing in a traditional Aboriginal community, and hosts traditional ceremonies, including funeral business. This is effectively prohibited under Housing Commission leases and the Tenancy Act, for the noise and overcrowding problems it creates in traditional European suburbs.
(v) Family obligation means the group would find it culturally impossible to refuse hospitality to some family and friends, particularly those visiting Darwin and those in need for health reasons, if only short term. Housing Commission leases limit the number of residents in a rented dwelling, often to particular designated people and to a maximum number of occupants. Friends or family staying more than briefly would in lease terms be sub-tenants for which Commission approval is probably needed. To allow such guests to stay can effectively breach lease terms. The design of flats and nuclear-family homes, and lease conditions (sensible in themselves) are not suited to this cultural hospitality imperative, and create difficulties.
(vi) The Elders would need control of access to where they live. At Fish Camp people have harassed them by driving through their camp, even when they are sleeping at night. People have stolen their belongings. Some of the Elders are frail and cannot keep out trespassers, and need a perimeter fence and lockable, secure gate for security. Aboriginal people owing hospitality to extended kin can be vulnerable to abuse of their hospitality, and to being harassed by plain trespassers. Housing Commission homes do not feature high perimeter fences, and tenants are vulnerable to losing their leases due to the actions of trespassers. This objective would be met through design of buildings, location and legal arrangements as to tenure which provide for:
a. A core group of permanent residents who will control the right to live and visit, but which allows for additional people to be sheltered temporarily;
b. Emphasis on heavy duty necessities such as running water and security, as opposed to buildings with all features of suburban homes
c. Open style living, with less emphasis on small private rooms;
d. Space for craft work and other group activities;
e. Wheel-chair accessibility;
f. Proximity to the sea for food gathering and fishing;
g. Proximity to bus routes;
h. Ceremony space in a bush or park setting allowing some distance from neighbours, as opposed to small back-yards for each resident,
i. Security of tenure for stable lives;
Objective 4
To provide permanent access to medical, telephone, social particularly health and other services. The need for these has already been explained under Objective 2 ("The Problem Now" heading). These objectives are readily met with the establishment of a fixed address, and telephone service.
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