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Black market for cheap housing ‘out of control’

Marginal and illegal housing has been exposed as a rampant problem by a fire in Sydney that raged in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

At approximately 1:40am on Wednesday, 15 people were evacuated from a blaze at a single-storey industrial complex on Burrows Road in the inner-city suburb of Alexandria.

The Korean and Japanese nationals were living in shipping containers, caravans and an old minibus behind the burning building.

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The incident exposed the underbelly of the Australian property market. Foreigns students, travellers, itinerant workers and the socially marginalised seek out the alternative living arrangements, which can be much cheaper but also much more dangerous, as evidenced by Wednesday’s fire.

CEO of Homelessness NSW Gary Moore has told The New Daily that the problem of marginal housing and overcrowded rental properties is “out of control” nationally.

“A lot of it flies beneath the radar,” said Mr Moore.

“We get a lot of anecdotal information from member organisations that are frontline services. They are always talking, particularly in Western Sydney, migrant groups, migrant families being exploited by ruthless landlords or people within their own community or within their own families even,” Mr Moore said.

In the past 12 months, the City of Sydney has received and investigated over 1000 reports of overcrowding, non-compliance with development approvals, and illegal use of buildings and properties.

Late on Thursday, the city council revealed that it had received a complaint about the Alexandria complex in late May, but failed to act on it. The notice was received from a local caterer after her business, which was located on the same land as the container housing, burned down.

The latest ABS data confirms that overcrowded living is on the rise. Between 2006 and 2011, those in severely crowded dwellings increased by almost 25 per cent, and those in crowded dwellings jumped 41 per cent in the same period to 60,875.

Two thirds of the rise in severe crowding over this period was amongst people born overseas, with Chinese, New Zealand, Afghani and Indian immigrants the largest affected groups.

NSW Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins said the residents were living in squalor, and that four of them were lucky to escape the flames.

“The firefighters had to shield the people from the heat to get them to safety. They were too frightened to move. There were 20-metre flames,” Mr Mullins said.

The landlord, Masaaki Imaeda, who also claims to live on the industrial property, is now under investigation from the City of Sydney and New South Wales police.

According to the City of Sydney, any residential accommodation on the land, zoned a business park, was illegal.

An advertisement posted on a Japanese classifieds site by Mr Imaeda offers a camper at the Alexandria property for $130 per week, or $190 for two people, with a shared toilet, shower and washing machine.

Official rates of marginal housing and overcrowding probably grossly underestimate the problem, said Gary Moore, adding that exorbitant house prices was the cause of the problem.

“As the prime rental gets taken up, it pushes other people down into the lower end of the market, then pushes other people out altogether,” Mr Moore said.

According to the yearly Rental Affordability Report by Anglicare Australia, less than one per cent of rental properties listed on the weekend of 5-6 April 2014 were affordable for anyone on a government payment.

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Mr Moore is calling for a public enquiry into the issue, and hopes the fire will serve as the impetus for a long-term solution.

“What generally happens is, we have a disaster, like a boarding house fire or something like that, somebody dies or somebody just escapes, it’s news for two days and then it’s all forgotten about.

“All I can say is, I hope it is a spark that provides a bit of impetus for our politicians to think of this as important,” Mr Moore said.

—with AAP

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