Hon Wilson Tucker questions the Minister for Housing regarding vacant Government Regional Officers' Housing (GROH) properties in Kalgoorlie, including the number of vacant properties, their vacancy duration, maintenance frequency, and requests property condition reports. The Minister provides data on vacancy numbers and timelines, explains maintenance practices, and declines to table the condition reports due to resource constraints.

AnsweredQoN 615Legislative Council
Asked
2 September 2021
Portfolio
Housing

QuestionView source ↗

GOVERNMENT
REGIONAL OFFICERS' HOUSING — KALGOORLIE
615. Hon WILSON TUCKER to the Leader of the House
representing the Minister for Housing:
I refer the minister to the Government Regional Officers'
Housing program managed by the Housing Authority.
(1) How many GROH properties are currently vacant in
Kalgoorlie?
(2) How long has each property been vacant?
(3) How often is maintenance undertaken on GROH properties in
Kalgoorlie?
(4) Can the
minister please table the property condition reports for GROH properties in
Kalgoorlie?

AnswerView source ↗

I thank the honourable member for some notice of the
question.
(1) Government
Regional Officers' Housing properties are provided to a client agency
to meet their need for housing. The client agency determines the allocation of
properties to their employees, not the Department of Communities. It is not
uncommon that client agencies may have allocated vacant properties to enable them to recruit and deploy suitable employees,
including teachers and police. As at 30 August 2021, 32 GROH properties
in Kalgoorlie and Boulder were vacant and awaiting allocation or reallocation
to a new GROH tenant.
(2) The
Minister for Housing has requested that the Department of Communities conduct
an assessment of all vacant properties, including ageing GROH stock, with a view
to bringing these properties back online as
soon as possible. Where appropriate, GROH properties that no longer meet the
requirements and demand of client agencies are being considered to be
made available for clients on the public housing wait list. The minister recently announced the refurbishment
and transfer of six vacant GROH units in Collie to meet the public
housing need.
The rest of the answer is
contained in a table and I seek leave to have the response incorporated into Hansard .
[Leave
granted for the following material to be incorporated.]
Please see below a list of
the dates each vacant GROH property was vacated.
Date vacated
Total
December 2011
1
April 2013
1
July 2013
1
February 2014
1
May 2014
February 2017
1
March 2020
1
June 2020
1
May 2021
3
June 2021
2
July 2021
7
August 2021
12
(3) Maintenance
is provided to GROH properties as and when needed, in accordance with the
Residential Tenancies Act 1987.
(4) Providing
a property condition report for every GROH property in Kalgoorlie would take
significant time and effort and it would be unreasonable to divert resources
away from core business.

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