Residents living in the public housing complex in Moore Street, Creswick say they are fed up with their maintenance requests and complaints about their living conditions being ignored.
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The housing complex, where a fire recently burned down one unit and severely damaged two adjoining units, houses 32 elderly and disabled people.
Three residents, Maureen Coppick, Andrew Aiden and Doreen Paulke, said they were turning to the media as they were tired of having to push the state to adhere to its duty of care.
They said the units had a multitude of problems, including that many tenants were surviving with little to no heating after their Volkan heaters were disconnected months ago.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said it was working to address the concerns raised by tenants.
“While the works are underway on the Vulcan/Pyrox gas heater replacement program there obviously continues to be other maintenance works across the department’s many public housing properties,” it said.
The residents said some elderly tenants, aged in their 80’s and 90’s, were surviving the winter with a single portable heater given to them by the department. In addition, the residents said they held concerns about carbon monoxide poisoning, black mold and the belief asbestos could be in their walls.
The DHHS spokesperson said the property was built in the late 80’s when cement sheet was considered asbestos free.
“To allay any concerns, the department is arranging for testing to take place – any asbestos products will be appropriately dealt with.”
Mr Aiden said the DHHS had an obligation to handle requests and complaints in a timely manner, which he had not experienced.
“I could go on and on. This is a very small sample of the failures of duty of care, in my view,” he said. “There are between 1500 and 2000 public housing properties between Ballarat and here as well as the Grampians Region, which Ballarat is responsible for. However many public housing properties that amounts to, I can only assume this is replicated across these complexes and this is going to cost the state dearly.”
After Fairfax Media requested comment from the DHHS, housing officers showed up to the Moore Street complex to inspect one resident’s disconnected heater.
The resident, who did not wish to be named, said the contractor was initially going to leave the installation for the manufacturer to install in a months time, before being told by senior staff at DHS to install it immediately.
A carbon monoxide monitor was also installed, with the resident told to “get out immediately if it beeps”.
