Complaints about the state government agency that looks after public housing in South Australia have almost doubled over the past two years.
Complaints about maintenance have led the surge, which the human services minister puts down to a shortage of tradespeople and materials.
The SA Housing Authority — previously known as the Housing Trust — looks after public housing for the state government, as well as providing subsidies for private rentals.
Just over 1,600 complaints were made to the authority in 2021-22, according to its annual report tabled in parliament last week.
This compares with 1,198 complaints the year before and 897 in 2019-20.
Complaints were less than half that number in 2018-2019 and earlier.
More than half of the complaints received in the most recent financial year were about maintenance and safety issues.
A large number of complaints was also made about waiting too long for work to be done.
Housing Trust Tenants Association assistant secretary Julie Macdonald said things had begun to improve under the new government, but she believed the maintenance backlog had risen again because people thought their complaints would get more attention under Labor.
She said a lot of homes were in "really bad condition" and very old.
"Our public housing is falling to pieces," Ms Macdonald said.
"A lot of the older properties are decrepit.
"There's a lot of problems with wiring and plumbing ... flooring, roofs, everything and it's a really, really difficult situation to try and fix.
"Having said that, I think the government needs to throw more money at the maintenance in public housing and we need to recruit more tradespeople to try and do some of these jobs right across the board."
More complaints because of easier process
In its annual report, the authority said complaints increased because of better reporting.
"The authority's customer feedback and complaints policy and procedures were reviewed during 2020-21 and redrafted into plain language, making them more accessible for our customers and the general public," it said.
Human Services Minister Nat Cook agreed with this assessment, and said that encouraging the community housing sector to use the formal complaints process had also resulted in more complaints.
She said maintenance delays had been a problem because of "challenges across the building sector due to shortages of tradespeople and materials".
"For urgent maintenance issues, such as water leaks, contractors are responding to more than 90 per cent within set time frames," she said.
"A new maintenance contract has recently been signed, that takes effect from January 1, 2023, with financial incentives for good customer service and penalties for poor performance.
"The SA Housing Authority was also subject to deep staff cuts under the former Liberal government with a reduction of around 20 per cent of its staff from 2018 to 2022. This increased challenges faced by frontline staff to respond quickly to customer concerns."
Slow wait to fix repair that caused injury
Kat Garin has lived in her Housing Trust unit at Hillcrest for 16 years and has been a public housing tenant for 24 years.
She said maintenance problems were dealt with as slow as they ever had been.
She said she first reported broken tiles in her laundry three years ago and then, in January, her 13-year-old son, who has autism, cut his knee on them.
"It was very upsetting for him and very stressful for him and when they were contacted as a health hazard they didn't care," Ms Garin said.
"I'm still waiting now them to fix it."
She has also had trouble with black mould in her unit.
"Their maintenance service is going down the toilet," she said.
Sherallee Andrew, who looks after her elderly husband and her daughter, who has a disability, said the hold-time to speak to staff at Housing SA about maintenance issues on the phone was too long.
"Because I'm a family carer, I don't really want to spend too long just sitting here waiting for them to answer, you know," she said.
"I have recently been told I could be waiting 20 minutes for them to answer.
"It's frustrating — I don't have time to sit here for so long."
She resorted to calling Ms Cook's office directly when a power point was sparking in her laundry.
"It got scary," she said.
