THE NAKED CITY – BOARDING HOUSE BLUES

In the recent SBS series Filthy Rich And Homeless, one of the celebrity participants, Cameron Daddo, finds himself in one of this city’s notorious skid row boarding houses – a claustrophobic, roach infested, foul smelling room that most of us would consider unfit for human habitation. He is genuinely shocked that this kind of ‘accommodation’ still exists in Sydney in 2018 and soon realises that he would be better off sleeping rough.

The phrase “cockroach capitalism” has been around for many years and is often employed to describe those exploiting the least fortunate members of society and doing so with a minimal financial outlay. It’s the modus operandi of many of these fleabag boarding houses that still exist in inner city Sydney and the suburbs. Many have been in the same family holding for decades, generating a lucrative cash flow, with only a minimal capital investment when it comes to maintenance and the furnishing of the premises.

Whilst NSW Fair Trading lays down basic rules when it comes to boarding houses and requires a $100 registration fee, many are a law unto themselves. As for basic cleanliness and safety it’s up to local councils to carry out inspections and recent history tells us that they don’t do this very well. When it comes to council compliance, the bureaucrats seem more preoccupied as to the colour you paint a heritage terrace than the kind of squalor that freaked out Cameron Daddo.

NSW Fair Trading states that, “While a resident is living in the boarding house, they have: a right to live in a house that is reasonably clean and secure, and in a reasonable state of repair, a right to have quiet enjoyment of the place in which they live, a right to be given receipts for any money they pay the proprietor or manager of the boarding house and a right to be given four weeks written notice of any increase in the occupancy fee.”

There are admittedly many well operated boarding houses throughout Sydney that observe these regulations. The current shortage in rental accommodation has seen a boom in better quality boarding houses that charge between $200 and $300 a week for a single room with shared amenities. Some of the old fleabag establishments have been snapped up by real estate developers, given an extensive makeover and marketed at the short term rental market including students and itinerant workers. There’s good money to be made when you can cram fifteen shoebox rooms into what was once a large suburban two storey home.

The gentrification of many old style boarding houses has led to a shortage at the cheaper end of the market but there are still numerous run down nightmares of which Cameron Daddo had all but a fleeting experience. Some should probably be forcibly closed down, if they can’t provide basic cleanliness, but that would probably push even more people onto the street. Whilst councils can oversee things like fire safety and overcrowding, it’s hard to legislate against offering a total shithole for somebody to live in – especially if the tenant is desperate to find any form of shelter.

Whilst most of the disadvantaged men and women that find themselves in these skid row hell holes are unlikely to be tech savvy device users, maybe we need a dedicated website or Trip Advisor style reviews to at least name and shame the shonks who run them. The owners are often very wealthy people with the real estate alone worth millions. They obviously have little compassion for the plight of society’s unfortunate and are interested only in a substantial slice of their welfare payment.