CHFV Rooming House Sector Group

The Rooming House Sector Group brings together workers from all community managed rooming houses. It is a very active sub-committee in which all members are encouraged to participate - often through working groups which pursue particular issues.

The Rooming House Sector Group:

• Offers a forum for information sharing and discussion of issues of interest to rooming house providers.
• Represents the collective view of rooming house members.
• Provides other CHFV members and the CHFV Management Committee with information and insights about the rooming house sector.
• Contributes to CHFV policy development and advocacy in relation to the rooming house program.
• Acts as a consultative mechanism for CHFV on rooming house issues.
• Monitors current government policy direction on rooming house provision.
• Negotiates with the Office of Housing on operational and policy issues.
• Collects data for CHFV on the rooming house program.

Membership

The Rooming House Sector Group is open to members of the Federation. However, only Full Members are entitled to vote and each Full Member organisation is entitled to one vote. An elected convenor chairs the meetings and ensures that all the issues raised are followed up.

Current Activities

Rooming House Review Project

Emerging difficulties in the provision of singles housing in rooming houses and crisis accommodation has lead the executive of the Office of Housing to authorise a strategic project to review the operation of Director owned rooming houses and make recommendations about future directions. The review will consider three matters:

(a) Tenancy and Property Management Models:

• Look at different models , best practices, new ways of thinking
• Explore whether long term is best for RH
• What’s the future of RH in the portfolio
• Ways in which this can be influenced

(b) Asset Management

• Develop guidelines on the management of capital assets
• Need to have a balanced approach state-wide
• Look at developing sector wide approach in conjunction with HPF obligations
• This will be developed in-house by the Office of Housing before being distributed to the sector for consultation

(c) Support Initiatives

• Transitional Housing type support
• Health and well being support
• How much to join up?
• Establish forums
• Look at what’s the future for RH in term of OoH portfolio

Click here to see the report (pdf 181kb)

Office of Housing Maintenance

The new year has brought in changes to the way urgent and essential maintenance is reported for community managed Office of Housing (OOH) properties.  Since 1st February all urgent and essential maintenance requests are to be reported to the OOH’s general call centre in Moe, instead of directly to COMAC as has occurred in the past.  COMAC only becomes involved if a request is complicated or questionable or a community housing group is having problems with satisfactory completion of the request.

Reports from the field so far indicate that the call centre staff have been very good in terms of courtesy and responsiveness.  However there have been some teething problems due to the lack of familiarity of staff with the differences between community housing and OOH general stock.  CHFV expressed strong reservations to OOH when these changes first came onto the horizon, citing the different nature of both the buildings and tenants in community housing stock.  We were concerned that the call centre staff would not have the same knowledge and experience as COMAC staff.  CHFV will be monitoring this closely.  Please report any ongoing problems with the handling of urgent and essential maintenance requests to CHFV at chfv@chfv.org.au and 03 9654 6077.Further changes to the way maintenance is conducted for community-managed OOH properties are being proposed as part of the negotiations between CHFV and the OOH on the Housing Provider Framework (HPF).  The OOH has drawn up a process for assessing the capability of community housing groups wanting to undertake their own responsive and preventative maintenance.  This is the subject of ongoing consideration by CHFV’s HPF Working Party.

CHFV is also having discussions with OOH about the long-term asset management of community-managed properties.  This has long been a sore point with community housing managers who feel that the OOH has neglected its responsibilities in regard to upgrade and long-term maintenance. The OOH has agreed to develop a framework for its asset management in conjunction with CHFV.  This could then be inserted in future service agreements with community housing providers and provide some assurance to them about the OOH meeting its asset management obligations.

Responding to emergencies

Produced by the sub committee, the Emergency Response Procedures Manual was produced by CHFV in 2005. This manual outlines the roles and responsibilities of all parties when emergencies occur (this includes fire, earthquake, storm, explosion, gas leak, disruption to an essential service, bomb threat or epidemic). This kit is curretnly being updated.

Rooming House Resident Mediation project (click on heading for details).

The sub committee, in collaboration with the Tenants Union of Victoria, has negotiated with the Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria (DSCV) to provide a mediation service for rooming house residents. Resource materials, including a training manual and module for mediators, plus publicity material for rooming house residents and support workers, have been developed.

CODA

CODA is the tenancy management IT system developed for the rooming house program. Discussions about the CODA software are a regular standing item on the Rooming House Sub-Committee agenda, and there re regular meetings of the CODA Users Group, which all members are welcome to attend.

Meetings

Meetings for 2010:

Meetings will be held from 10:30 am to 12:30 am on the second Wednesday of every month. Meetings will usually be held in the main board room of the CHFV offices (Level 5, 128 Exhibition Street, Melbourne).

• 10 February
• 10 March
• 14 April
• 12 May
• 9 June
• 14 July
• 11 August
• 8 September
• 13 October
• 10 November
• December (Christmas lunch - TBA)

Convenor for 2010: 

To be advised

Contact for further information:

Tel: 9654 6077 or chfv@chfv.org.au.