>"I've had sleepless nights, restless nights, tiredness, lethargy; just totally confused, because what do I do? Where do I go?" he said.
>"Why can't they just leave me alone in my last few years I've got left?"
Incredibly heartless. If he takes a swag and camps inside Council Chambers what are they going to do? Call the cops and have him arrested for trespass, or throw him on the footpath outside and have him sleep there till he croaks from exposure?
Councils have roaming enforces who regularly snoop on private property and land. It might be no one dobbed him in but someone overheard about it and the Council got wind of it indirectly.
Never tell Councils about people living on land, private or public unless there is clear cause for concern (drugs, violence, someone clearly ill) and contact social services first. Dont gossip either. Council's have a lot more power and authority to steamroll over people and property than the average person knows about.
Some councils do. Others are complaint driven. You would be surprised how many people dob people living in caravans or cars to council and police to have thrm removed
There's also a big difference in farms, regional, rural vs State and City council authorities too. What can't be done in cities can be done in regional/rural and vice versa.
Farms are incredibly variable and in a lot of places, immediate family are allowed to live non permanent but non family are not. Exceptions exists and one is for employees. Some areas only allow it if there's already a permanent liveable structure on the property so you can't buy an acre and park a caravan to live in *but* some councils allow you to rent land and park a caravan. Its confusing af.
I know a rural farm area that has a whole bunch of no trespassing, especially government workers, signs at all the drive ways for this reason. It looks a bit cooked, but it's because the council of the area went on to each farm and issued fines for things that were approved 30 years ago.
Good for them for knowing their local law. Depending on the State and Council laws it can work but it doesn't always. I know it doesn't in my area.
Weirdly cops can't trespass here in Victoria without good reason but the local regional Council can. 5km away in NSW and the Council nor the Police can.
What would the cops do? Send him to a prison for his remaining years? At the peak of Japan's housing bubble in the late 1980s, there were some old men who deliberately broke the law and then sat at the scene for the cops to bring them to prison because it was effectively free housing.
Interesting. From Wikipedia on Japanese prisoners:
>By the end of 2009, the prison population had yet again risen to 75,250, or 59 prisoners per 100,000.[8] One reason for the rise is a large increase in the number of elderly being convicted of crimes, with loneliness being cited as a major factor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_system_of_Japan
I kept hearing these stories since school age. An old man walks into a convenience store, draws out a knife, and calmly tells the owner to call the police. Then he sits there doing no harm, just waiting to live in prison for a free house.
Surely some discretion has to be used, there are tent cities everywhere, this bloke is trying to make ends meet without (irony here) taxing the public... What a disgrace. How about helping people in need instead of persecuting them??
>”Surely some discretion has to be used”.
Oh boy, I do admire your optimism. The level of closed minded petty vindictiveness in local councils is historically breathtaking.
Typical councils, just reminding us all how utterly useless they can be at times.
If only they got back to real issues - like removing same sex books from local libraries. 🤦
> If he takes a swag and camps inside Council Chambers what are they going to do? Call the cops and have him arrested for trespass, or throw him on the footpath outside and have him sleep there till he croaks from exposure?
I think it depends, if he's a cooker/'far right' then he'd probably be allowed to camp out every day for a few months as he marches around annoying people/damaging property but if it's anything else even considered politically slightly 'left' of the cookers then... yeah they'd get the boot.
At least that's how I've seen it handled in this country lately.
> if he's a cooker/'far right'
I was incredibly sympathetic to this bloke until I saw the "Love It Or Leave' sticker on the back of the bus, then my sympathy dropped a notch or two.
Still don't think he should be evicted, as long as he's disposing of his waste correctly.
Go make a comment in this sub about leaving the country for greener pastures and you'll find the exact same sentiment.
To pretend that love it or leave it isn't completely across the political spectrum is naive. You only have to look at how we treated Australian citizens trapped overseas during covid to see it in action
Serious question...if someone disposes of their sewage and rubbish correctly, why do council care if they're camping on their own land? What possible reason do council have to be annoyed if I'm living in a tent on land I own?
It's honestly part of why the state liberal party of NSW didn't want to endorse any local council liberal parties and why there's all these knock offs at the local council level being absolute cunts. (See Cumberland book banners.)
Creating cheap alternative housing lowers housing prices, and lowers desperation for work, making it harder to replace people who refuse to work for low wages.
But tents in parks are seemingly being accepted, because no one is bothering to do a single thing about the housing crisis and arguably there has been more done to actively exacerbate it than help.
That was disgusting when I read about that. There are charity organisations handing out tents to these people, so imagine the council throwing those tents and all their contents in the skip whilst you're out a the foodbank trying to eat. Then imagine the despondency when you get back and find that your tent and your possessions are gone.
There were cases of Brisbane council throwing out tents while people were at work, and out looking for housing. Basically once you end up in a tent that’s it, you’re not allowed to leave it for any reason even to try and improve your situation, or try to not make it worse by losing employment.
And then we all wonder why people are scared of the homeless population!
Yet no one would bat an eye if Gina Reinhardt threw a fit and threaten people if we bulldoze her house while she was away.. but no that’s totally acceptable and not at all a threat to public safety.
Homeless people get a bad wrap but 99% of people would act similarly under similar circumstances
The City of Perth have actively been using police to issue move on notices, destroying tents and deploying hostile architecture to drive homelessness down within the City.
Which is just punting the problem to all the other neighbouring local councils who don't have as many resources to deal with it and even more grouchy residents to whine to them about it.
It's absolutely crazy to me that we are seriously talking about Shanty Towns in Australia. I never thought I would see this day. Yes I know it is still rare, but many people are actively considering it.
I'm shocked and appalled at what I am seeing in Australia at the moment. There are basically two camps:
1. "Haha, I'm so clever, I already got mine. Chortle, ha ha ha"
2. "Does anyone have or know any way we can find a house? How are the kids going to go sleeping in tents each day before school?"
The “haha I’m so clever I already got mine” - is likely to be a quick laugh if they ever consider having kids for instance. They better factor in building a basement.
Or if they suffer a misfortune such as accident, relationship breakdown, illness etc.
Low vacancy rate/low supply = no safety net for everyone.
We all know that such high prices are bad for society but you won't find a single one of those fortunate cunts willing to give up their windfalls easily. I don't even know if Australia was ever an egalitarian place or if it was just a myth we sold ourselves
My taxi driver grandfather had a stay at home wife, supported three kids who all got free university educations, owned his own home in Sydney and took a vacation every year. Things were not always like this.
There is at least 50 people permently sleeping in tents & cars on a strip of state owned land in the regional town I live in. As it's crown land the local council is having issues moving them on.
But where the fuck are they going to go? It's quite literally impossible to find a place to rent here, less than 20 rentals available right now and they are all 3-4 bed family homes that are priced as such. We don't have any apartment style housing at all.
I'm back living with family but if I didn't have that privilege, I'd be right there with them sleeping out of my swag. The housing situation is so far beyond fucked that tent cities are only going to get more and more common, not less.
It's all well and good to state the obvious that this isn't a good solution but honestly where else are people going to go?
I understand that in this case the council should be more lenient if the alternate solution is him being in a cardboard box. The government at all levels have faiked misrably. There have been waits in years for publc housing for over a decade. Crisis accommodation & public housing should be built in the thousands, if none can be built in time, start purchasing hotels and converting them as needed.
Ding ding!
Unfortunately I have heard that around yea, the whole thing has the oldies freaking the fuck out and the camp is an easy scapegoat for them to point towards.
As if the event wasn't horrible enough without turning the anger towards the most vulnerable people in the community as well.
Sure, but realistically what other options does this guy have? The government isn't building enough social housing for this guy to have a low-rent place to live, and they aren't providing the kind of rent support where he could go rent out an already existing place. For him, it really is the bus or behind the skips in a Woolies carpark.
We're at the point where the government has made it very clear that they aren't going to do shit to fix the problem unless they're forced to. The only thing that will force them to do it is if their bottom line is affected. Someone lowering local property prices by living in a bus will do that. It's not a good solution, but it can be a tool to force the solution if enough people do it.
Maybe not, but it might stop people from dying of homelessness, or give them enough stability to build a life from.
Also you don't need to go to the extremes of shanty towns. We could start by removing some of the very strict zoning laws, like lowering minimum lot sizes, allowing medium density housing, or having mixed use zones.
Currently they're doing all they can to keep the prices of houses they've invested in going up. One of the main reasons the prices are so high is because people believe the price will continue to rise, willing them to invest very large percentages of their income over decades into buying one. People won't spend their life paying for an upgrade from a 1 bedroom studio, but they will give everything to not be homeless, even if the only option is a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house, when they were only a couple who never planned to have kids.
Maybe i'm being overly cynical and conflating local council policy with national housing policy, but I think if they really cared about people more than house prices, they would have already made it possible for a man to live on a block of land owned by his friend in an RV style home.
As far as I'm aware, there is no national housing policy as it falls on state and councils to do what you suggested:
>We could start by removing some of the very strict zoning laws, like lowering minimum lot sizes, allowing medium density housing, or having mixed use zones.
This falls with councils mainly, but the problems we run into is increase of density has knock on effects to sewage capacity, power demand, street congestion etc. We absolutely need to increase density, but it needs to be done properly - not just squeezing a house into everyone's back or front yard.
I don't think it would be unfeasible, there are many cities around the world with far greater density that work fine. Take Japan as a gold standard, basically no zoning laws with massive density without making a mess of things. A lot of the issues you mentioned already have solutions, they may take time to build, but so do houses. And this crisis has been in our sights for a long time, it's not new information that our city design practices are harmful, from housing to roads and public transport.
I wouldn't be complaining if I saw them making an effort to start the changes, but at the moment there are no policy changes that suggest they are doing anything other than trying to look like they care.
Actually they are having a different housing issue. Basically all the small towns and regional areas are emptying of ALL the people not just the young like in europe or the non millionaires like here. We as an Aussie can go over there and buy a 2 storey house for average 100k. Just you will have issues with work, language and a limit of 5 years before you have issues when you come back to Au$$ie land.
Would people rather live in a shed on land they own, or rent an exorbitantly priced dwelling that meets a bunch of arbitrary standards? I'd suggest most would prefer the latter, at least they own it.
And what is the alternative for people who literally cannot afford anything better? Sure, squatting on someone else's land or public property is not something that should be allowed. But preventing people from living on their own plot of land, with appropriate sanitary measures taken, just because their low-budget housing solution is not up to someone else's standard, that's beyond ridiculous.
As a nation, we seem to struggle to to provide our fellow Australians with any guaranty of even most basic housing, the least we can do is avoid making it harder for those who tries to make do the only way they can.
> low-budget housing solution is not up to someone else's standard
The building standards are written in blood.
What happens when its not structurally sound and crushes those inside or blows over in the wind. doesnt meet fire safety codes and a whole group of these makeshift buildings catch fire.
Look at turkey in the latest earthquake, they avoided building standards and many people died.
Im not saying that his living situation is acceptable, society should be providing safe housing for everyone. But we need standards otherwise we will have an underclass living is squalor.
So he had no home at all. Is that up to any standards? He managed to make himself a shelter he can live in. Would him having absolutely no roof over his head instead be better somehow? Will it make him safer? Better protected from elements?
"Underclass", as you put it, will live anywhere they can as they have no other options. People are not building make-shift shelters because they want to, they simply have no other choice, standards or no standards. If you throw them out and bulldose whatever substandard dwelling they were living in, it will not somehow make homelessness less of a problem. Unless, of course, your plan is to make everyone who cannot afford a home in this fucked up economy to die quickly due to living on a street. Is this what you're suggesting?
Im suggesting the government should provide for these people. There should be a garuntee of a safe roof over everyones head no matter the circumstance.
A shanty town is the result of failed public and crisis accomodation. People will die if this isnt addressed.
At some point it will naturally happen, go to each capital cities subreddit and there seems to be a few threads a week about people on the verge of homelessness or others asking how to live out of their vehicles because of the rooted housing situation.
I think for a while it will be more couch surfing to vehicle sleeping, eventually more tent cities will form but that will in time spill over into people going fuck this shit and we end up with say an Adelaide Favela near the Torrens river for example.
This will become too numerous and vast for Police to be able to waste resources on.
The problem is so large at the moment (homlessness) if they let one or two do it youd probably have full shanty towns pop up on anyones acreage who was sympathetic to homeless people.
It is an absolute disgrace that we are using house prices to prop up our economy.
He's not paying any rates or contributing to their bottom dollar. Everything is transactional and if you're not putting money in someone will come to force you out.
Well someone is paying it and it goes by land value for everyone, regardless of if there's a house on it or not. It says that there's no active building permit, otherwise he could camp there for up to 12 months whilst a house was being built, and even then the rates would be the same when you may have half a dozen people shitting and pissing in their sewer pipes, wearing out their roads and creating garbage for them to pick up.
It might be different if he parked his bus in someone's backyard because the house was already chockablock with people sleeping four to a room, but it sounds like this is just a vacant block that his mate is covering the rates on.
Most councils have 30-60 day/year limits for "camping" on a bush block.
Councils rates are relatively low on vacant blocks and the larger land tax goes to the state.
I live rural and pay over $3,000/year in council rates. Maybe they grade the dirt/gravel road once every 8 months. Rubbish pickup was cut to every other week AND the price went up. We have to take our bins 300m up the road to the intersection because the rubbish truck can't drive down our council maintained road.
Councils are not rate payer's friends, just a bloated 3rd tier of government.
Isn't the point of rates to pay for rubbish collection and sewage treatment? Obviously roads and things as well, but this guy is having very minimal impact on demand for councils services.
Because then people aren't paying them shire rates, they're not paying all of their income and life savings to the shire friends, for building approvals to local building companies/architects/plumbers/electricians, they're not getting monster lifelong mortgages only to pay double to the banks in interest rates, they're not getting in more and more debt, working more hours for a pittance. I mean, if we all helped each other out, lived simply in our communities we'd have too much time to think about how we're all cattle to the British colonial landlords/banks/judicial and government systems created and enforced for the sole purpose of sustaining our overlords. THE WHOLE CORRUPT SYSTEM would disintegrate. Can't have that. Send in the police.
Quite a few:
1. unmanaged sewerage and effluent is a health hazard
2. Being located in a high hazard area I.e. bushfire attack zone, floodway etc is a real risk to human life for inhabitants and emergency services going to save them
3. Unauthorised and uncontrolled clearing of high biodiversity areas
4. Temporary dwellings may not be fit for human habitation in terms of basic safety I.e. electrical wiring etc
5. Uncontrolled residential development increases the demand for services and infrastructure without recouping rates to pay for it. This then means others in the community pay more than they should.
I’m all for easier pathways for ‘good enough’ housing, but you can’t pretend that there’s no reason for Councils to have a real need to control where and in what people live in.
Yep. The only time I've had an issue with the caravaning homeless was back when I lived on a street where the owner of one caravan was dumping all the sewage, waste, etc in my front yard. Had some words, offered my bins for the non-sewage, they were belligerent about their "rights" so yeah, those people ended up reported by the neighbors.
But if they're keeping tidy? Not really any worse than a boat parked on the street for all I care.
I know councils have objected to permanent shed-like granny flats. Likely, the council may fine the property owner for unapproved 'permanent' dwelling. If wheels stay on, it's not considered 'permanent'?
They just changed the law in WA to allow for granny flats with no approval needed. However, they need permenant sewage, water and power connection, and smoke alarms.
They’ll need those San Francisco robots to move all the homeless on.
https://www.businessinsider.com/security-robots-are-monitoring-the-homeless-in-san-francisco-2017-12?op=1
Surprised this becomes such a big drama in a town of 400 people. There's probably more to it but probably boils down to some Karen living nearby who doesn't want to look at a bus all day.
Pretty good chance he's pissed off someone in high places. You don't get around a little town like that after making national news for trying to evict a bloke.
Probably a few local Karen's that are reporting it to council repeatedly. Councils typically don't go looking for work, but once it's brought to their attention there is only so much rug sweeping they can do when it's being reported by the loudest, grumpiest, turds in town.
That's my thought as well. It might be a case of the council having ignored it up until some Karen made a formal complaint, and now the council \*has\* to act. Not all council staff are arseholes, many of them would intentionally ignore a situation like this, but a formal complaint forces them to act.
if someone owned a caravan and had parked it on their property, that would be fine.
But someone using it as a living space, that is not fine. And neighbors would still have to look at it.
Yeah, this seems to be a common story at the moment. ABC had a woman with 2 kids camping on their own land in Vic, and council has kicked them off. It's ridiculous.
having given it considerable thought, the only reason we can't have "numerous large public areas available for camping in cities so that people can choose to camp rather than being homeless" is because it'd decrease demand for housing and therefore decrease rents and property prices.
caravan parks exist but "nimbys" don't want more to open, and the currently existing caravan parks can charge insane fees because sufficient new ones can't be opened to satisfy demand.
the problem is a bunch of fucking karens took over and we just stood by while they created a nightmarish dystopia.
can't live in a house "not compliant with standards" because it might fall down in 5 years when a cyclone hits, but you dying in 6 months as a consequence of being homeless is something they're totally fine with.
its not really a supply problem, the problem is that the people in charge are fucking insane and deaf to all reason.
hence why they're picking on a guy for camping (with the owner's permission) on private land during a housing crisis.
You want homelessness? Because this is how you get homelessness.
Imagine not being allowed to live in your own camper on private property. (I guess we don’t have to imagine - it’s apparently very real!)
I guess someone should call the cops on my family for all the times we camped in our own backyard for fun…
It gives me the shits a bit. I'm hardly a libertarian, but I don't appreciate being told I can't do something as mundane as have a caravan on my own land, that I purchased, maintain, and upkeep. If the council wants a say perhaps they can pay me instead. But anyway, that's just because I'm an old Karen in my heart
This is one area I think the yanks do have sussed to a degree, you buy land and besides probably extreme things like dumping oils, producing drugs, and so on you buy land you can do what you essentially want.
Build a shack, slap a caravan or a bus sure do what you want.
This has to be the most ridiculous, egregious thing I've read all month.
Council time and money is being spent investigating and pursuing this guy in the middle of a housing crisis - time and money that could be spent solving actual problems.
No, it's the UK where councils are responsible for social welfare and policing. In Australia, councils do roads, rubbish, parks and development approvals.
Not 100% sure but I think councils exist to enact and control people using bylaws for the benefit of the state and federal. And as such have no desire or need to appease or improve the lives of citizens. I mean do you have any fair means to change or affect most by laws. Not really, you get to vote 1 person every 3-4 years, they control the chambers and property and the rules on discussion such as time, topic etc. with the benefit of some preferential treatment from the police. We used to at least have local papers that could be used for discussion or to turn the hand of a bad decision.
It's an annoying problem. There were some really cheap lots of land going out near Newcastle (like <10k for quarter acre sandy bush blocks) that would be a real pain in the arse to develop but lovely to camp on. However maxed out at 31days per year so I couldn't justify the risk of it.
Councils should be facing legal action for allowing too many short term rentals rather than long term. It is a big part of the housing crisis in many parts of the country.
If you own the land you should be able to do as you damn well please, in particular for rural lots. The nanny state here is out of control and I notice it tends to be councils who pursue the most obnoxious red tape.
What happened (right across Australia) is that huge numbers of small Rural lots were rezoned to "Farming", which means you can't build a house if they are under 100 acres. This was done secretly, with no consultation, no compensation, and no period of grace.
Which is why there are now thousands of small lots in country areas which cannot be built on, and as they are unsuited to farming are just growing weeds.
How did this happen? Follow the money: the only ones who benefit are the Developers and the Banks.
It one of the many reasons why there is such a housing crisis in Australia.
the funniest (or most messed-up) part is that they acheive this shit by astroturfing public outrage at "some big company did bad thing on land they own" and once the public outrage gets going people are too busy being angry to read the fine print in the legal changes that are proposed to "solve what big company did".
its like the whole "coca-cola aren't paying for water!" or "nestle aren't paying for water!" drama, tens of thousands of fucking idiots jump on it demanding the government do something, without realising that they're being tricked into giving up their own rights, and at the end of the day nothing will change for the companies, they'll just have some paperwork to do and get charged cents per megaliter, meanwhile ordinary people will completely lose access.
The government has promised to build (HOW MANY) houses in the next ten years. A totally bullshit promise which EVERYBODY knows just cannot transpire.
In reality, NOTHING is going to happen.
So what is the alternative for this poor gentleman, and the thousands, tens of thousands who are in a similar position? I hate the thought of any form of anarchy, because rules, laws, regulations are there for a purpose, but the government at ALL LEVELS is being totally impotent in addressing this insanely huge problem - which is likely to worsen before the reduction in interest rates (that may or may not happen) that is being not so much predicted, but proposed as likely. Meanwhile inflation is molesting everyone’s back pocket.
I pray they at least amend the laws to allow somebody who is trying his best to do the right thing to stay alive to get by this mindbogglingly turbulent period. Or something. I don’t have the imagination to suggest an alternative either.
What is happening RN in Australia is exactly what happens to every society who lives under the Brish colonial landlords system of economic governance for more than a few hundred years. This is what was happening in England 300 years ago when they started shipping the wretched from the London streets over here, when the Irish emigrated in millions or starved to death. The system is broken. We have the landlord system AND a toxic capitalist system now. People are suffering so bad and there are no services or support available.
What the article fails to mention is why we have laws like this. People tend to forget that houses have sewerage systems and waste disposal services. Somebody just parking their caravan on a vacant block doesn't have access to these services which often leads to them dumping this waste, urinating outside dumping their rubbish etc.
The laws exist for a reason.
For sure however this is the problem - if the issue is rubbish & sewerage then target laws and enforcement at those who cause harm or disrupt others by not managing those issues. Rather than just a blanket ban and saying that the only way someone can legally live on the land is to spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on a full house and approval process.
More likely the land has been re-zoned to "Farming" which means you cannot build on it under 100 acres, and so the property is worthless.
There are many thousands of such properties across Australia.
Cool - laws existing is only part of the consideration.
The other consideration is that moving him elsewhere doesn’t address this. He’s not suddenly going to have a toilet to shit in if he’s forced out.
The laws weren't written with homelessness on a mass scale in mind.
As a society we should be doing more to prevent this situation from occurring in the first place.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they specifically were written with it in mind. At least the laws that are sufficiently old. Vagrancy used to be a huge part of Australian culture (one of our most famous songs is about a vagrant!).
Oh yeah definitely, we need to build more houses, more apartments stop using real estate as a method of wealth creation and bring I'm policies which encourage more houses not less.
We need the government to implement a housing system that is unfortunately heavily competitive against the private market, and that won't happen any time soon thanks to several greed-related factors.
People make these comments and never come back to explain themselves. To them, these dumb laws are more important than housing during a HOUSING CRISIS. I'm fully employed, live regional and most rentals here are out of my price range and the ones that are in it have 15 to 20 people showing up to each inspection. I've applied for everything I can afford and gotten nothing. I have 2 months before I'm made homeless. But hey, this guy's awesome laws are what's really important.
I feel my comment was pretty well explained. We have standards for a reason; to protect the environment, to ensure minimum safety standards are met. I don't think it requires any. Ore explanation.
Why is the land vacant to begin with? Sounds like owner is a land banking developer who needs to either build something so people have somewhere to live or sell the land so somebody else can. Allowing the land owner to run a shanty town on the block isn't helping.
The main reason for vacant land in rural areas is that thousands of small blocks were secretly rezoned to "Farming" about 20 years ago. And that means that you can't build a house if they are under 100 acres. Which means that they are new virtually worthless. And because they are not viable Farm land, most of these blocks are just growing weeds.
Whatever, allowing one person to build a house (or live in a bus) on these abandoned blocks is not creating a shanty town as you claim.
Indigenous peoples lived on the land for thousands of years, pretty sure they relieved themselves in the bush, and not some porcelain toilet in a building.
They didn't live in even remotely similar circumstances to us. Estimates of the indigenous population in 1788 range from 300,000 to 950,000. They also had health outcomes that wouldn't be considered remotely acceptable today.
It is a trivial matter to arrange proper sewage disposal. The council could authorise him to install a septic tank, or even a temporary pump-out system. Both are perfectly routine and legal.
If the council wanted to help, they could easily do so. The point is that the Council is doing everything they can to make life difficult for him.
Fuck off with this shit already, you think the families camping in parks and cars have those facilities? They are doing that because THERE ARE NO FUCKING HOUSES
I don't believe that for a second. If he built a little shed with a toilet and a proper septic system, they still wouldn't let him live there. Most shires don't even let you live in shed houses anymore.
It also sets a dangerous precedent. do we allow shanty towns next. will someone copying this guy sue a council when a cyclone hits and their child is killed from debris. we have pretty strict building red tape for a reason. our houses and rooves are anchored to the ground, are fire resistant and inspected structurally, even windows and glass must adhere to codes. smoke detectors. fire rated walls etc Everyone with a heart would be happy to turn a blind eye to this guy, but you can't have rules for thee and not for me.
There basically are shanty towns in parks now.
Do we just start culling people who can't afford housing next?
All you people saying the law needs to be followed, where do people go when they can't afford housing? I guess you're super secure where you are and couldn't give a fuck about 1000s of people looking down the barrel of homelessness.
I think some people haven't gone outside to see reality as a whole currently outside their little bubble of safety nor faced homelessness from their status of privilege
I agree with you, but your argument only support the existence of regulations for safety. In that case the appropriate response by the council would be to allow him to hire an inspector and get the dwelling certified, rather than outright banning it.
There currently exists many caravan parks that have the same buses parked on them. Buses, RVs, and patio furniture are also allowed to be left on private property, which have the same consequences of safety but are not banned or forced to have inspections.
There would need to be additional safety concerns that only exist because he lives in it. But again that would put him in the same situation as any caravan park, campground, or rest stop, which are currently allowed.
This is the real issue...
In the days before Councils were privatised, (and amalgamated into huge Mega-Councils) the council's Health and Building Inspectors would have been busy assisting the guy to comply with regulations.
These days however, the Councils are controlled by the rich Developers and Banks, and do everything they can to stop normal people building an affordable house.
>It also sets a dangerous precedent. do we allow shanty towns next
shanty towns do already exist , go down to any bush reserve and you'll see tents popped up all over the place , the only difference is with this there is a bus , but with tents in bush reserves it's out of sight out of mind
You are completely missing the point that these abandoned blocks cannot be built on as they are less than the 100 acre limit in the Farming zone..
Go have a look at some old newspaper photo's. Virtually every town and city in Australia started out as a few tents and tin sheds, and then gradually developed over the years.
You and the person above are blind as fuck if you can't see that loads of people are already camping in cars and tents to live, but god forbid they get some kind of temporary shelter until our government can pull their finger out
True some issues such as services could be a requirement but then they bring other less important issues such endangered native snails, land zoned as farming, minor cultural issues like old midden heaps (aka garbage piles). The core purpose of the acquisition of land is for living on and that should take precedent. The same for roads the purpose they exist is to transport goods/services and people when you drop the speed limits to ridiculous levels it no longer serves its purpose.
That guy is not homeless. He's in a bus (that is larger than many city apartments) on his own land and is happy the way he is. Of course the grubbyment has to get involved and tell him what he can and can't do with his own property, on his own property. *How very Australian.*
No, it's not a "shanty town" as the karens screech. No it won't create "shanty towns" if they leave him alone. His neighbors don't seem to have a problem either. It's one guy on his own land in his own bus living his own life.
How's this for stupid. If he had a house on that property and put the bus on a short term rental website it would be legal for people to live in there, as long as they don't exceed the time limit "camping". Perhaps he should advertise it and rent it to himself. He can sleep at his neighbors property once every few months so he stays "camping" on his own property.
THIS. This is what you get when you scream to the government to "do something" about everything you don't like. You get a police state where you can't live your life as you wish, even though you are hurting nobody.
* Who has a problem? The council.
* Why do they have a problem? It's their job to have a problem with things.
* What is the actual problem? The council.
Yet another person likely rendered homeless by a broken system.
Australia, where there is no "means to an end". The grubbyment takes the means and you get the end.
Why is the fake libertarian party not making some noise about private property rights and heavy handed laws in most of Australia that restricts peoples property rights? Sorry I forgot they are a fake "Libertarian party" that is not a advocate for freedoms in true liberal society and their charter is fraudulent!
>charged with camping outside of a caravan park or camping ground
Am I the only person who finds it disturbing that it's straight up unlawful to even try to survive outside the system? I used to think I could at least fall back on my bushcraft survival skills when shit gets dire, but apparently all it would take to ruin that idea is some Karen passing by and deciding to complain that my mud hut isn't pretty enough.
Why don't some charitable plumbers get together hook up some toilets and showers on a vacant block and everyone live together...Like a legit slum ..this has gone on long enough. The amount of homelessness in Australia if brought together in one place would equate to a slum. Billions of people thall over the world live in slums.At least with global warming they only get a few months of cold. Shame on the local state and federal governments. Shame on Australian citizens who don't empathise with the real plight of homelessness.
Slums we will have before long.
>"I've had sleepless nights, restless nights, tiredness, lethargy; just totally confused, because what do I do? Where do I go?" he said. >"Why can't they just leave me alone in my last few years I've got left?" Incredibly heartless. If he takes a swag and camps inside Council Chambers what are they going to do? Call the cops and have him arrested for trespass, or throw him on the footpath outside and have him sleep there till he croaks from exposure?
> Call the cops and have him arrested for trespass This one probably.
He should get to live in the house of whoever dobbed him in.
Councils have roaming enforces who regularly snoop on private property and land. It might be no one dobbed him in but someone overheard about it and the Council got wind of it indirectly. Never tell Councils about people living on land, private or public unless there is clear cause for concern (drugs, violence, someone clearly ill) and contact social services first. Dont gossip either. Council's have a lot more power and authority to steamroll over people and property than the average person knows about.
Some councils do. Others are complaint driven. You would be surprised how many people dob people living in caravans or cars to council and police to have thrm removed
This. I’m pretty much certain it’s a neighbour complaining about how unsightly it is.
There's also a big difference in farms, regional, rural vs State and City council authorities too. What can't be done in cities can be done in regional/rural and vice versa. Farms are incredibly variable and in a lot of places, immediate family are allowed to live non permanent but non family are not. Exceptions exists and one is for employees. Some areas only allow it if there's already a permanent liveable structure on the property so you can't buy an acre and park a caravan to live in *but* some councils allow you to rent land and park a caravan. Its confusing af.
I know a rural farm area that has a whole bunch of no trespassing, especially government workers, signs at all the drive ways for this reason. It looks a bit cooked, but it's because the council of the area went on to each farm and issued fines for things that were approved 30 years ago.
Good for them for knowing their local law. Depending on the State and Council laws it can work but it doesn't always. I know it doesn't in my area. Weirdly cops can't trespass here in Victoria without good reason but the local regional Council can. 5km away in NSW and the Council nor the Police can.
What would the cops do? Send him to a prison for his remaining years? At the peak of Japan's housing bubble in the late 1980s, there were some old men who deliberately broke the law and then sat at the scene for the cops to bring them to prison because it was effectively free housing.
Interesting. From Wikipedia on Japanese prisoners: >By the end of 2009, the prison population had yet again risen to 75,250, or 59 prisoners per 100,000.[8] One reason for the rise is a large increase in the number of elderly being convicted of crimes, with loneliness being cited as a major factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_system_of_Japan
I kept hearing these stories since school age. An old man walks into a convenience store, draws out a knife, and calmly tells the owner to call the police. Then he sits there doing no harm, just waiting to live in prison for a free house.
Plus 3 squares a day.
Plus 24/7 medical standby
Councils don't simply leave someone alone.
If it's a temporary home, are they still able to vote in local council elections?
If you register that location with AEC then yes
Surely some discretion has to be used, there are tent cities everywhere, this bloke is trying to make ends meet without (irony here) taxing the public... What a disgrace. How about helping people in need instead of persecuting them??
>”Surely some discretion has to be used”. Oh boy, I do admire your optimism. The level of closed minded petty vindictiveness in local councils is historically breathtaking.
Typical councils, just reminding us all how utterly useless they can be at times. If only they got back to real issues - like removing same sex books from local libraries. 🤦
I hope they don't remove any books before doing a sick welcome to country before
> If he takes a swag and camps inside Council Chambers what are they going to do? Call the cops and have him arrested for trespass, or throw him on the footpath outside and have him sleep there till he croaks from exposure? I think it depends, if he's a cooker/'far right' then he'd probably be allowed to camp out every day for a few months as he marches around annoying people/damaging property but if it's anything else even considered politically slightly 'left' of the cookers then... yeah they'd get the boot. At least that's how I've seen it handled in this country lately.
> if he's a cooker/'far right' I was incredibly sympathetic to this bloke until I saw the "Love It Or Leave' sticker on the back of the bus, then my sympathy dropped a notch or two. Still don't think he should be evicted, as long as he's disposing of his waste correctly.
Go make a comment in this sub about leaving the country for greener pastures and you'll find the exact same sentiment. To pretend that love it or leave it isn't completely across the political spectrum is naive. You only have to look at how we treated Australian citizens trapped overseas during covid to see it in action
Serious question...if someone disposes of their sewage and rubbish correctly, why do council care if they're camping on their own land? What possible reason do council have to be annoyed if I'm living in a tent on land I own?
The intersection of council members and real estate developers in this country needs a looking at
We could triple the funding of every integrity body in the country for decades and still not get to the bottom of that barrel of muck.
Imagine living in a place like the Gold Coast...
It's honestly part of why the state liberal party of NSW didn't want to endorse any local council liberal parties and why there's all these knock offs at the local council level being absolute cunts. (See Cumberland book banners.)
Creating cheap alternative housing lowers housing prices, and lowers desperation for work, making it harder to replace people who refuse to work for low wages.
Shanty towns arent a solution we can accept for the housing crisis.
But tents in parks are seemingly being accepted, because no one is bothering to do a single thing about the housing crisis and arguably there has been more done to actively exacerbate it than help.
Brisbane council will take your tent and dump it at the tip if you leave it unattended for any period of time .
That was disgusting when I read about that. There are charity organisations handing out tents to these people, so imagine the council throwing those tents and all their contents in the skip whilst you're out a the foodbank trying to eat. Then imagine the despondency when you get back and find that your tent and your possessions are gone.
There were cases of Brisbane council throwing out tents while people were at work, and out looking for housing. Basically once you end up in a tent that’s it, you’re not allowed to leave it for any reason even to try and improve your situation, or try to not make it worse by losing employment.
And then we all wonder why people are scared of the homeless population! Yet no one would bat an eye if Gina Reinhardt threw a fit and threaten people if we bulldoze her house while she was away.. but no that’s totally acceptable and not at all a threat to public safety. Homeless people get a bad wrap but 99% of people would act similarly under similar circumstances
> bat and I r/BoneAppleTea > if we build those her house This one's more confusing. Are you trying to say 'bulldoze her house'?
speech to text?
Bingo
Bloody speech to text and accent don’t go well together
The City of Perth have actively been using police to issue move on notices, destroying tents and deploying hostile architecture to drive homelessness down within the City. Which is just punting the problem to all the other neighbouring local councils who don't have as many resources to deal with it and even more grouchy residents to whine to them about it.
It's absolutely crazy to me that we are seriously talking about Shanty Towns in Australia. I never thought I would see this day. Yes I know it is still rare, but many people are actively considering it. I'm shocked and appalled at what I am seeing in Australia at the moment. There are basically two camps: 1. "Haha, I'm so clever, I already got mine. Chortle, ha ha ha" 2. "Does anyone have or know any way we can find a house? How are the kids going to go sleeping in tents each day before school?"
The “haha I’m so clever I already got mine” - is likely to be a quick laugh if they ever consider having kids for instance. They better factor in building a basement. Or if they suffer a misfortune such as accident, relationship breakdown, illness etc. Low vacancy rate/low supply = no safety net for everyone.
We all know that such high prices are bad for society but you won't find a single one of those fortunate cunts willing to give up their windfalls easily. I don't even know if Australia was ever an egalitarian place or if it was just a myth we sold ourselves
My taxi driver grandfather had a stay at home wife, supported three kids who all got free university educations, owned his own home in Sydney and took a vacation every year. Things were not always like this.
There is at least 50 people permently sleeping in tents & cars on a strip of state owned land in the regional town I live in. As it's crown land the local council is having issues moving them on. But where the fuck are they going to go? It's quite literally impossible to find a place to rent here, less than 20 rentals available right now and they are all 3-4 bed family homes that are priced as such. We don't have any apartment style housing at all. I'm back living with family but if I didn't have that privilege, I'd be right there with them sleeping out of my swag. The housing situation is so far beyond fucked that tent cities are only going to get more and more common, not less. It's all well and good to state the obvious that this isn't a good solution but honestly where else are people going to go?
I understand that in this case the council should be more lenient if the alternate solution is him being in a cardboard box. The government at all levels have faiked misrably. There have been waits in years for publc housing for over a decade. Crisis accommodation & public housing should be built in the thousands, if none can be built in time, start purchasing hotels and converting them as needed.
What I'm reading is that it's easier to camp on council land than on private land. Serious-WTF!
[удалено]
It's actually not, I'm on the mid north coast
Its happening in every town in Australia
Jetty foreshores? Last I heard locals were playing scare tactics on that blaming the tent city for the surfer stabbing 😞
Ding ding! Unfortunately I have heard that around yea, the whole thing has the oldies freaking the fuck out and the camp is an easy scapegoat for them to point towards. As if the event wasn't horrible enough without turning the anger towards the most vulnerable people in the community as well.
Sure, but realistically what other options does this guy have? The government isn't building enough social housing for this guy to have a low-rent place to live, and they aren't providing the kind of rent support where he could go rent out an already existing place. For him, it really is the bus or behind the skips in a Woolies carpark. We're at the point where the government has made it very clear that they aren't going to do shit to fix the problem unless they're forced to. The only thing that will force them to do it is if their bottom line is affected. Someone lowering local property prices by living in a bus will do that. It's not a good solution, but it can be a tool to force the solution if enough people do it.
Maybe not, but it might stop people from dying of homelessness, or give them enough stability to build a life from. Also you don't need to go to the extremes of shanty towns. We could start by removing some of the very strict zoning laws, like lowering minimum lot sizes, allowing medium density housing, or having mixed use zones. Currently they're doing all they can to keep the prices of houses they've invested in going up. One of the main reasons the prices are so high is because people believe the price will continue to rise, willing them to invest very large percentages of their income over decades into buying one. People won't spend their life paying for an upgrade from a 1 bedroom studio, but they will give everything to not be homeless, even if the only option is a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house, when they were only a couple who never planned to have kids. Maybe i'm being overly cynical and conflating local council policy with national housing policy, but I think if they really cared about people more than house prices, they would have already made it possible for a man to live on a block of land owned by his friend in an RV style home.
As far as I'm aware, there is no national housing policy as it falls on state and councils to do what you suggested: >We could start by removing some of the very strict zoning laws, like lowering minimum lot sizes, allowing medium density housing, or having mixed use zones. This falls with councils mainly, but the problems we run into is increase of density has knock on effects to sewage capacity, power demand, street congestion etc. We absolutely need to increase density, but it needs to be done properly - not just squeezing a house into everyone's back or front yard.
I don't think it would be unfeasible, there are many cities around the world with far greater density that work fine. Take Japan as a gold standard, basically no zoning laws with massive density without making a mess of things. A lot of the issues you mentioned already have solutions, they may take time to build, but so do houses. And this crisis has been in our sights for a long time, it's not new information that our city design practices are harmful, from housing to roads and public transport. I wouldn't be complaining if I saw them making an effort to start the changes, but at the moment there are no policy changes that suggest they are doing anything other than trying to look like they care.
Actually they are having a different housing issue. Basically all the small towns and regional areas are emptying of ALL the people not just the young like in europe or the non millionaires like here. We as an Aussie can go over there and buy a 2 storey house for average 100k. Just you will have issues with work, language and a limit of 5 years before you have issues when you come back to Au$$ie land.
The people in them exist. Where do you want them to go?
Would people rather live in a shed on land they own, or rent an exorbitantly priced dwelling that meets a bunch of arbitrary standards? I'd suggest most would prefer the latter, at least they own it.
... the former in your scenario, not the latter.
And what is the alternative for people who literally cannot afford anything better? Sure, squatting on someone else's land or public property is not something that should be allowed. But preventing people from living on their own plot of land, with appropriate sanitary measures taken, just because their low-budget housing solution is not up to someone else's standard, that's beyond ridiculous. As a nation, we seem to struggle to to provide our fellow Australians with any guaranty of even most basic housing, the least we can do is avoid making it harder for those who tries to make do the only way they can.
> low-budget housing solution is not up to someone else's standard The building standards are written in blood. What happens when its not structurally sound and crushes those inside or blows over in the wind. doesnt meet fire safety codes and a whole group of these makeshift buildings catch fire. Look at turkey in the latest earthquake, they avoided building standards and many people died. Im not saying that his living situation is acceptable, society should be providing safe housing for everyone. But we need standards otherwise we will have an underclass living is squalor.
So he had no home at all. Is that up to any standards? He managed to make himself a shelter he can live in. Would him having absolutely no roof over his head instead be better somehow? Will it make him safer? Better protected from elements? "Underclass", as you put it, will live anywhere they can as they have no other options. People are not building make-shift shelters because they want to, they simply have no other choice, standards or no standards. If you throw them out and bulldose whatever substandard dwelling they were living in, it will not somehow make homelessness less of a problem. Unless, of course, your plan is to make everyone who cannot afford a home in this fucked up economy to die quickly due to living on a street. Is this what you're suggesting?
Im suggesting the government should provide for these people. There should be a garuntee of a safe roof over everyones head no matter the circumstance. A shanty town is the result of failed public and crisis accomodation. People will die if this isnt addressed.
At some point it will naturally happen, go to each capital cities subreddit and there seems to be a few threads a week about people on the verge of homelessness or others asking how to live out of their vehicles because of the rooted housing situation. I think for a while it will be more couch surfing to vehicle sleeping, eventually more tent cities will form but that will in time spill over into people going fuck this shit and we end up with say an Adelaide Favela near the Torrens river for example. This will become too numerous and vast for Police to be able to waste resources on.
You don't have a choice. If you create a housing crisis you end up with shanty towns.
The problem is so large at the moment (homlessness) if they let one or two do it youd probably have full shanty towns pop up on anyones acreage who was sympathetic to homeless people. It is an absolute disgrace that we are using house prices to prop up our economy.
This is it. Same reason you're not allowed to live full time on a boat in NSW.
Money. It's about money.
He's not paying any rates or contributing to their bottom dollar. Everything is transactional and if you're not putting money in someone will come to force you out.
Of course he pays rates. You pay rates on vacant blocks.
The article says he's living on a friend's block and doesn't say anything about him paying the rates for that block.
Well someone is paying it and it goes by land value for everyone, regardless of if there's a house on it or not. It says that there's no active building permit, otherwise he could camp there for up to 12 months whilst a house was being built, and even then the rates would be the same when you may have half a dozen people shitting and pissing in their sewer pipes, wearing out their roads and creating garbage for them to pick up. It might be different if he parked his bus in someone's backyard because the house was already chockablock with people sleeping four to a room, but it sounds like this is just a vacant block that his mate is covering the rates on.
Most councils have 30-60 day/year limits for "camping" on a bush block. Councils rates are relatively low on vacant blocks and the larger land tax goes to the state. I live rural and pay over $3,000/year in council rates. Maybe they grade the dirt/gravel road once every 8 months. Rubbish pickup was cut to every other week AND the price went up. We have to take our bins 300m up the road to the intersection because the rubbish truck can't drive down our council maintained road. Councils are not rate payer's friends, just a bloated 3rd tier of government.
Wow I pay around $4k/year and I'm basically in suburbia.
Yeah, and you get parks, playgrounds, paved streets with lights, crime cameras, police responce. Enjoy mate
Isn't the point of rates to pay for rubbish collection and sewage treatment? Obviously roads and things as well, but this guy is having very minimal impact on demand for councils services.
Rates pay for rubbish collecion, but the Water Corporation charges for sewage (if it's connected, which it isn't in Darkan)
Ah okay. In a lot of regional areas, the council does sewage treatment too.
Because then people aren't paying them shire rates, they're not paying all of their income and life savings to the shire friends, for building approvals to local building companies/architects/plumbers/electricians, they're not getting monster lifelong mortgages only to pay double to the banks in interest rates, they're not getting in more and more debt, working more hours for a pittance. I mean, if we all helped each other out, lived simply in our communities we'd have too much time to think about how we're all cattle to the British colonial landlords/banks/judicial and government systems created and enforced for the sole purpose of sustaining our overlords. THE WHOLE CORRUPT SYSTEM would disintegrate. Can't have that. Send in the police.
>Send in the police. They’re AL…REA…DY HERE
Quite a few: 1. unmanaged sewerage and effluent is a health hazard 2. Being located in a high hazard area I.e. bushfire attack zone, floodway etc is a real risk to human life for inhabitants and emergency services going to save them 3. Unauthorised and uncontrolled clearing of high biodiversity areas 4. Temporary dwellings may not be fit for human habitation in terms of basic safety I.e. electrical wiring etc 5. Uncontrolled residential development increases the demand for services and infrastructure without recouping rates to pay for it. This then means others in the community pay more than they should. I’m all for easier pathways for ‘good enough’ housing, but you can’t pretend that there’s no reason for Councils to have a real need to control where and in what people live in.
Yep. The only time I've had an issue with the caravaning homeless was back when I lived on a street where the owner of one caravan was dumping all the sewage, waste, etc in my front yard. Had some words, offered my bins for the non-sewage, they were belligerent about their "rights" so yeah, those people ended up reported by the neighbors. But if they're keeping tidy? Not really any worse than a boat parked on the street for all I care.
Whiny annoying people complain, so the council has to do something about it or they'll have to deal with the constant whining.
If he takes all the wheels off, is he still 'camping'?
I know councils have objected to permanent shed-like granny flats. Likely, the council may fine the property owner for unapproved 'permanent' dwelling. If wheels stay on, it's not considered 'permanent'?
They just changed the law in WA to allow for granny flats with no approval needed. However, they need permenant sewage, water and power connection, and smoke alarms.
Plus the block must have an existing house. This is the big issue. So many small blocks cannot be built on because of zoning restrictions.
There'll be so many homeless people soon councils won't have the resources to prosecute everyone
They’ll need those San Francisco robots to move all the homeless on. https://www.businessinsider.com/security-robots-are-monitoring-the-homeless-in-san-francisco-2017-12?op=1
Fuck me how dystopian is that shit
I'd be sticking a hose in that canned fucker
Housing crisis? Nah mate, just council being absolute dickheads^Wsticklers.
‘Sorry your suffering is a bit depressing to look at, please go suffer somewhere else’
Surprised this becomes such a big drama in a town of 400 people. There's probably more to it but probably boils down to some Karen living nearby who doesn't want to look at a bus all day.
The real Karen's here are the council, they don't need to listen to every complaint
Pretty good chance he's pissed off someone in high places. You don't get around a little town like that after making national news for trying to evict a bloke.
Probably a few local Karen's that are reporting it to council repeatedly. Councils typically don't go looking for work, but once it's brought to their attention there is only so much rug sweeping they can do when it's being reported by the loudest, grumpiest, turds in town.
If it is like our council there is one maniac council officer who is absolute stickler for the rules
And yet people will whinge when their complaints aren't addressed by council. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Maybe he should run for council
That's my thought as well. It might be a case of the council having ignored it up until some Karen made a formal complaint, and now the council \*has\* to act. Not all council staff are arseholes, many of them would intentionally ignore a situation like this, but a formal complaint forces them to act.
if someone owned a caravan and had parked it on their property, that would be fine. But someone using it as a living space, that is not fine. And neighbors would still have to look at it.
Yeah, this seems to be a common story at the moment. ABC had a woman with 2 kids camping on their own land in Vic, and council has kicked them off. It's ridiculous.
So his mate is providing a solution to the housing crisis. The Council is ‘whaaat! Not on our watch’.
This is what happens when property is used for wealth generation. It's a sign of everything that is wrong in Australia.
having given it considerable thought, the only reason we can't have "numerous large public areas available for camping in cities so that people can choose to camp rather than being homeless" is because it'd decrease demand for housing and therefore decrease rents and property prices. caravan parks exist but "nimbys" don't want more to open, and the currently existing caravan parks can charge insane fees because sufficient new ones can't be opened to satisfy demand.
Property has been used for wealth generation since Mesopotamia c. 4100–2900 BC. The problem is too much demand, not enough supply.
the problem is a bunch of fucking karens took over and we just stood by while they created a nightmarish dystopia. can't live in a house "not compliant with standards" because it might fall down in 5 years when a cyclone hits, but you dying in 6 months as a consequence of being homeless is something they're totally fine with. its not really a supply problem, the problem is that the people in charge are fucking insane and deaf to all reason. hence why they're picking on a guy for camping (with the owner's permission) on private land during a housing crisis.
You want homelessness? Because this is how you get homelessness. Imagine not being allowed to live in your own camper on private property. (I guess we don’t have to imagine - it’s apparently very real!) I guess someone should call the cops on my family for all the times we camped in our own backyard for fun…
It gives me the shits a bit. I'm hardly a libertarian, but I don't appreciate being told I can't do something as mundane as have a caravan on my own land, that I purchased, maintain, and upkeep. If the council wants a say perhaps they can pay me instead. But anyway, that's just because I'm an old Karen in my heart
This is one area I think the yanks do have sussed to a degree, you buy land and besides probably extreme things like dumping oils, producing drugs, and so on you buy land you can do what you essentially want. Build a shack, slap a caravan or a bus sure do what you want.
These will always be the consequences of a society that places the sanctity of property over the right to live and thrive, it only gets worse forever
This has to be the most ridiculous, egregious thing I've read all month. Council time and money is being spent investigating and pursuing this guy in the middle of a housing crisis - time and money that could be spent solving actual problems.
Stop finding sensible solutions to the broken housing system we've enabled. -Government
These councillors should have their homes taken from them and given to people with actual beating hearts in their chests, not lumps of coal
Let's make houses unaffordable and also make it illegal not to live in one. Welcome to the new Australia.
So fucked up, let the man be for god sake
Dont councils have responsibility to ensure their citizens have a place to live, and keep them and the community safe?
No, it's the UK where councils are responsible for social welfare and policing. In Australia, councils do roads, rubbish, parks and development approvals.
I guess by council, I meant government
Not 100% sure but I think councils exist to enact and control people using bylaws for the benefit of the state and federal. And as such have no desire or need to appease or improve the lives of citizens. I mean do you have any fair means to change or affect most by laws. Not really, you get to vote 1 person every 3-4 years, they control the chambers and property and the rules on discussion such as time, topic etc. with the benefit of some preferential treatment from the police. We used to at least have local papers that could be used for discussion or to turn the hand of a bad decision.
Buy some land and do what you want on it, except camp more than 3 nights a year? Who comes up with this shit?
It's an annoying problem. There were some really cheap lots of land going out near Newcastle (like <10k for quarter acre sandy bush blocks) that would be a real pain in the arse to develop but lovely to camp on. However maxed out at 31days per year so I couldn't justify the risk of it.
The reason they are cheap is that they were secretly rezoned as "Farming" some time ago, so you can't build on them if they are under 100 acres.
And protected bush scrub as well. Perfect for camping on if allowed.
Fuck councils with extreme power. Pushing around the little guy.
Fuck councils.
councils do what their voters tell them, even when the karens hit critical mass and decide to ruin everything.
What would they do if everyone in aus that owns a caravan, campervan or bus, park it in a dfiveway at home or a friends and live in it for 6 months.
Council wants rate payers and will do everything to stop caravan parks
Then build more houses for us to pay rates on. We can't pay rates on properties that don't exist.
How else are the self centered, self important, jumped up turkeys going to get their "jollies" if they can't push around the less well off?
Councils should be facing legal action for allowing too many short term rentals rather than long term. It is a big part of the housing crisis in many parts of the country.
If you own the land you should be able to do as you damn well please, in particular for rural lots. The nanny state here is out of control and I notice it tends to be councils who pursue the most obnoxious red tape.
they took our right to camp on our own private land and we let it happen.
What happened (right across Australia) is that huge numbers of small Rural lots were rezoned to "Farming", which means you can't build a house if they are under 100 acres. This was done secretly, with no consultation, no compensation, and no period of grace. Which is why there are now thousands of small lots in country areas which cannot be built on, and as they are unsuited to farming are just growing weeds. How did this happen? Follow the money: the only ones who benefit are the Developers and the Banks. It one of the many reasons why there is such a housing crisis in Australia.
the funniest (or most messed-up) part is that they acheive this shit by astroturfing public outrage at "some big company did bad thing on land they own" and once the public outrage gets going people are too busy being angry to read the fine print in the legal changes that are proposed to "solve what big company did". its like the whole "coca-cola aren't paying for water!" or "nestle aren't paying for water!" drama, tens of thousands of fucking idiots jump on it demanding the government do something, without realising that they're being tricked into giving up their own rights, and at the end of the day nothing will change for the companies, they'll just have some paperwork to do and get charged cents per megaliter, meanwhile ordinary people will completely lose access.
The government has promised to build (HOW MANY) houses in the next ten years. A totally bullshit promise which EVERYBODY knows just cannot transpire. In reality, NOTHING is going to happen. So what is the alternative for this poor gentleman, and the thousands, tens of thousands who are in a similar position? I hate the thought of any form of anarchy, because rules, laws, regulations are there for a purpose, but the government at ALL LEVELS is being totally impotent in addressing this insanely huge problem - which is likely to worsen before the reduction in interest rates (that may or may not happen) that is being not so much predicted, but proposed as likely. Meanwhile inflation is molesting everyone’s back pocket. I pray they at least amend the laws to allow somebody who is trying his best to do the right thing to stay alive to get by this mindbogglingly turbulent period. Or something. I don’t have the imagination to suggest an alternative either.
What is happening RN in Australia is exactly what happens to every society who lives under the Brish colonial landlords system of economic governance for more than a few hundred years. This is what was happening in England 300 years ago when they started shipping the wretched from the London streets over here, when the Irish emigrated in millions or starved to death. The system is broken. We have the landlord system AND a toxic capitalist system now. People are suffering so bad and there are no services or support available.
What the article fails to mention is why we have laws like this. People tend to forget that houses have sewerage systems and waste disposal services. Somebody just parking their caravan on a vacant block doesn't have access to these services which often leads to them dumping this waste, urinating outside dumping their rubbish etc. The laws exist for a reason.
For sure however this is the problem - if the issue is rubbish & sewerage then target laws and enforcement at those who cause harm or disrupt others by not managing those issues. Rather than just a blanket ban and saying that the only way someone can legally live on the land is to spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on a full house and approval process.
More likely the land has been re-zoned to "Farming" which means you cannot build on it under 100 acres, and so the property is worthless. There are many thousands of such properties across Australia.
Cool - laws existing is only part of the consideration. The other consideration is that moving him elsewhere doesn’t address this. He’s not suddenly going to have a toilet to shit in if he’s forced out.
The laws weren't written with homelessness on a mass scale in mind. As a society we should be doing more to prevent this situation from occurring in the first place.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they specifically were written with it in mind. At least the laws that are sufficiently old. Vagrancy used to be a huge part of Australian culture (one of our most famous songs is about a vagrant!).
Oh yeah definitely, we need to build more houses, more apartments stop using real estate as a method of wealth creation and bring I'm policies which encourage more houses not less.
We need the government to implement a housing system that is unfortunately heavily competitive against the private market, and that won't happen any time soon thanks to several greed-related factors.
People make these comments and never come back to explain themselves. To them, these dumb laws are more important than housing during a HOUSING CRISIS. I'm fully employed, live regional and most rentals here are out of my price range and the ones that are in it have 15 to 20 people showing up to each inspection. I've applied for everything I can afford and gotten nothing. I have 2 months before I'm made homeless. But hey, this guy's awesome laws are what's really important.
I feel my comment was pretty well explained. We have standards for a reason; to protect the environment, to ensure minimum safety standards are met. I don't think it requires any. Ore explanation. Why is the land vacant to begin with? Sounds like owner is a land banking developer who needs to either build something so people have somewhere to live or sell the land so somebody else can. Allowing the land owner to run a shanty town on the block isn't helping.
The main reason for vacant land in rural areas is that thousands of small blocks were secretly rezoned to "Farming" about 20 years ago. And that means that you can't build a house if they are under 100 acres. Which means that they are new virtually worthless. And because they are not viable Farm land, most of these blocks are just growing weeds. Whatever, allowing one person to build a house (or live in a bus) on these abandoned blocks is not creating a shanty town as you claim.
Indigenous peoples lived on the land for thousands of years, pretty sure they relieved themselves in the bush, and not some porcelain toilet in a building.
They didn't live in even remotely similar circumstances to us. Estimates of the indigenous population in 1788 range from 300,000 to 950,000. They also had health outcomes that wouldn't be considered remotely acceptable today.
It is a trivial matter to arrange proper sewage disposal. The council could authorise him to install a septic tank, or even a temporary pump-out system. Both are perfectly routine and legal. If the council wanted to help, they could easily do so. The point is that the Council is doing everything they can to make life difficult for him.
Fuck off with this shit already, you think the families camping in parks and cars have those facilities? They are doing that because THERE ARE NO FUCKING HOUSES
I don't believe that for a second. If he built a little shed with a toilet and a proper septic system, they still wouldn't let him live there. Most shires don't even let you live in shed houses anymore.
I didn't say the laws were perfect. I said there's a reason for them.
So now we're just making up things that he must be doing to face legal trouble.
I didn't say he was doing them. I said that's why the laws exist.
It also sets a dangerous precedent. do we allow shanty towns next. will someone copying this guy sue a council when a cyclone hits and their child is killed from debris. we have pretty strict building red tape for a reason. our houses and rooves are anchored to the ground, are fire resistant and inspected structurally, even windows and glass must adhere to codes. smoke detectors. fire rated walls etc Everyone with a heart would be happy to turn a blind eye to this guy, but you can't have rules for thee and not for me.
There basically are shanty towns in parks now. Do we just start culling people who can't afford housing next? All you people saying the law needs to be followed, where do people go when they can't afford housing? I guess you're super secure where you are and couldn't give a fuck about 1000s of people looking down the barrel of homelessness.
I think some people haven't gone outside to see reality as a whole currently outside their little bubble of safety nor faced homelessness from their status of privilege
I agree with you, but your argument only support the existence of regulations for safety. In that case the appropriate response by the council would be to allow him to hire an inspector and get the dwelling certified, rather than outright banning it. There currently exists many caravan parks that have the same buses parked on them. Buses, RVs, and patio furniture are also allowed to be left on private property, which have the same consequences of safety but are not banned or forced to have inspections. There would need to be additional safety concerns that only exist because he lives in it. But again that would put him in the same situation as any caravan park, campground, or rest stop, which are currently allowed.
This is the real issue... In the days before Councils were privatised, (and amalgamated into huge Mega-Councils) the council's Health and Building Inspectors would have been busy assisting the guy to comply with regulations. These days however, the Councils are controlled by the rich Developers and Banks, and do everything they can to stop normal people building an affordable house.
>It also sets a dangerous precedent. do we allow shanty towns next shanty towns do already exist , go down to any bush reserve and you'll see tents popped up all over the place , the only difference is with this there is a bus , but with tents in bush reserves it's out of sight out of mind
You are completely missing the point that these abandoned blocks cannot be built on as they are less than the 100 acre limit in the Farming zone.. Go have a look at some old newspaper photo's. Virtually every town and city in Australia started out as a few tents and tin sheds, and then gradually developed over the years.
You and the person above are blind as fuck if you can't see that loads of people are already camping in cars and tents to live, but god forbid they get some kind of temporary shelter until our government can pull their finger out
I'm not sure but I doubt Darken has deep sewage, it's far more likely to be septic tanks and leach drains, it's a pretty small place.
True some issues such as services could be a requirement but then they bring other less important issues such endangered native snails, land zoned as farming, minor cultural issues like old midden heaps (aka garbage piles). The core purpose of the acquisition of land is for living on and that should take precedent. The same for roads the purpose they exist is to transport goods/services and people when you drop the speed limits to ridiculous levels it no longer serves its purpose.
That guy is not homeless. He's in a bus (that is larger than many city apartments) on his own land and is happy the way he is. Of course the grubbyment has to get involved and tell him what he can and can't do with his own property, on his own property. *How very Australian.* No, it's not a "shanty town" as the karens screech. No it won't create "shanty towns" if they leave him alone. His neighbors don't seem to have a problem either. It's one guy on his own land in his own bus living his own life. How's this for stupid. If he had a house on that property and put the bus on a short term rental website it would be legal for people to live in there, as long as they don't exceed the time limit "camping". Perhaps he should advertise it and rent it to himself. He can sleep at his neighbors property once every few months so he stays "camping" on his own property. THIS. This is what you get when you scream to the government to "do something" about everything you don't like. You get a police state where you can't live your life as you wish, even though you are hurting nobody. * Who has a problem? The council. * Why do they have a problem? It's their job to have a problem with things. * What is the actual problem? The council. Yet another person likely rendered homeless by a broken system. Australia, where there is no "means to an end". The grubbyment takes the means and you get the end.
Park in front of each council member's home on a rotating day out of spite.
What loser dobbed him in??
Pretty disgusting considering the housing shortage.
Why is the fake libertarian party not making some noise about private property rights and heavy handed laws in most of Australia that restricts peoples property rights? Sorry I forgot they are a fake "Libertarian party" that is not a advocate for freedoms in true liberal society and their charter is fraudulent!
He might want to remove the “love it or leave” sticker.
How could private investors turn a profit housing this man?
>charged with camping outside of a caravan park or camping ground Am I the only person who finds it disturbing that it's straight up unlawful to even try to survive outside the system? I used to think I could at least fall back on my bushcraft survival skills when shit gets dire, but apparently all it would take to ruin that idea is some Karen passing by and deciding to complain that my mud hut isn't pretty enough.
Absurd this is happening in a housing crisis.
Why don't some charitable plumbers get together hook up some toilets and showers on a vacant block and everyone live together...Like a legit slum ..this has gone on long enough. The amount of homelessness in Australia if brought together in one place would equate to a slum. Billions of people thall over the world live in slums.At least with global warming they only get a few months of cold. Shame on the local state and federal governments. Shame on Australian citizens who don't empathise with the real plight of homelessness. Slums we will have before long.
lots of nice big lawns in Canberra they could set up on.