Page 1892 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 1992
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Supported accommodation should be part of normal, everyday suburbs, beside everybody here. I am sure that nobody here would have a problem with supported accommodation next door if they knew exactly what was happening. It is fear of the unknown that usually causes problems for human beings. They are fearful that their property values will decrease. They are fearful that their safety might be in danger. They are fearful of their Neighbourhood Watch programs being upset because they do not know who lives there, who is visiting and all those sorts of things. They are fearful that the state of the property might not be appropriate.
All of those things could be easily addressed by appropriate consultation. We all know that supported accommodation does not do dramatically awful things to property values; but these people are fearful, and fear can be overcome by appropriate consultation. They are also worried about car parking and all the other things that happen when you have more than one family living in an area. The same thing occurs when a doctor's surgery is set up next door, and so on. All of those things can be addressed by appropriate consultation, as they are with doctors' surgeries, dental surgeries and other home-based enterprises.
The negative attitudes that have been produced by this lack of consultation, by their not being part of the whole process, have been quite destructive for the people who live in the refuge and for their children, who go to the local school with the children of the neighbours. How do these children cope with being ostracised on the basis of a system that has not worked? My children often go next door to play in the afternoon or the children from next door come over. That is the basis of a community, but if you have this fear and mistrust you totally destroy that. A number of the letters we have with regard to this particular house suggest that they would like to embrace this approach, that they would like to be part of the protection process, not the opposite. So we are not talking about people who want to get rid of these trendy lefties or anything like that. We are talking about people who care, people who want to be part of a community; but they are not being asked. Why are they not being asked? Mr Connolly suggests that the procedures are in place. Possibly the procedures are not working.
We totally acknowledge the need for privacy and confidentiality, but also we understand the need for social accountability. We understand that if you go down the track of appropriate social accountability you will get a much more accepting response. Let us be fair: Once one of these houses opens, whether it be for people who have been subject to domestic violence or whatever, it is quite obvious to the people who live next door what is happening there. You cannot keep that secret. So what is the purpose of keeping it secret from the immediate neighbours prior to the opening? It has been raised with us that a number of the neighbours and people living in the area have suggested a social contract and a liaison committee. How awful can this be? They are suggesting that a committee on which they are represented be part of the procedures for running this establishment - not for the day-to-day working, but just for things that might happen - so that they know what is happening in the refuge. I cannot see how this can be a great problem to a government that prides itself on its social accountability, on its consultation.
Here is a group who want to be part of that process and are told that they cannot be. The social contract that was put forward may not have been perfect. It was just their idea of what would make them happy. Some of the clauses probably are not appropriate, but it showed the fears they had and it showed a very simple
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