[North Eveleigh] 20 Years of REDWatch / Trevor Davies Lecture / Waterloo / People and Place Etc

[Geoff Turnbull (REDWatch Spokesperson)]

Dear REDWatch members, supporters and agencies,


REDWatch 20 year Anniversary - 6pm Thursday 6 June 2024

The Third Trevor Davies Memorial Lecture - 13 June 2024

Draft Waterloo People and Place Plan - feedback now until June 14 2024

Customer journey mapping & what it can tell us about service systems

Improving access to Community Rooms

Volunteers needed for temperature monitoring in Social Housing

Australia wide Petition to Unions for Community-led Green Bans to Defend & Extend Public Housing

Some further REDWatch comments on the People and Place Plan
Please note - this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue underlined word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a document or to get more information.
REDWatch 20 year Anniversary - 6pm Thursday 6 June 2024
The first public meeting of REDWatch was held on Sunday 16 May 2004 - you can see the initial notice for a Meeting of proposed "RedWatch" group<http://www.redwatch.org.au/redwatch/incorporation/040514redw>. Following the unrest on The Block in February 2004, a meeting was convened by the Darlington ALP to discuss how best to support the community. With the Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project (RWPP) RED Strategy redevelopment plans for Redfern Waterloo imminent the meeting decided that the best support would be for a group to be set up to monitor the RWPP and its proposed changes. From the beginning the initiative was supported actively by both the local ALP and Greens branches. By the end of 2004 the Clover Moore independents and local Liberals were also involved.
The June REDWatch meeting will be an opportunity for those who have been involved to tell their part of the story and for those who are more recent to the area or to REDWatch, to hear about what REDWatch has tackled and achieved over its 20 years. We will have some drinks and nibbles so people can also catch up and talk.
The meeting will be held at 6pm on Thursday 6th June 2024 at Counterpoint's Factory Community Centre, 67 Raglan St Waterloo and it will also be available on Zoom (without drinks and nibbles) via http://tinyurl.com/RedwatchMeetingZoom .
The meeting is open to anyone interested in hearing about REDWatch and the history over the last 20 years of the Redfern, Waterloo, Eveleigh and Darlington area that it monitors.
The Third Trevor Davies Memorial Lecture - 13 June 2024
As many of you will know, Trevor Davies (1956 - 2011)<http://www.redwatch.org.au/redw/trevor> was a much-loved stalwart of the inner-city, and the ALP introduced an annual lecture in his name to honour him. Trevor was also a founding member and active participant in REDWatch and was the founder and editor of the South Sydney Herald. Trevor is also the only person in Australia to have an ALP Branch named after him.
This year the Trevor Davies Branch we will be hosting a dinner style event, which invites friends to share a meal, conversation and policy discussion with one another at the Royal Hotel, Darlington on 13th June at 7:00pm. As this is a sit down event, RSVP is essential, which you can do here<https://click.actionnetwork.org/ss/c/u001.yjJN_MEbNx94PLaWzZ6hWwGamPY7W-vS4bGbFoLcGE_goybYzUFubWM_2Su_UtRTxV0dtoOInM1ODKlIMCjsk_ZwnZsLuzL0SAL7t2kGp1au0Kg5KfxrYiZR6iFSjMW_CVlUit9ZeqfgdUgo1AebxFYz8mcGy1r6BgGNkYAb_8NxOICuqyyKt18X8rKkBDOp0lBXf2diAnARgpqgu-yRVh2O02H6yKS-u5y834urlwDpUMmqNOsUF22FjDolieGpXzaiD694hU5hafifRI2Gz-O2oUHowibqUAJMjpxgTjgj6IPNzp1fzHolR3FVUii98GC3fILTs50oUgfhTi64ZMEuQWFtGqROpOZKOkGul34w2sMZ0RMb6n9l3y1O2zLWYR1cjUGizJI8nBlreDy5KYFAnjqKMRNzL27j64tvJADqtjbMS5PzprfkHF4D7OJTyyhZJ_kOiaGA5oGB9WnaLPUZ_paH16aG7Juea1sVrlE/46m/GbdkCyaoQsyuh0_T4nY_Ww/h3/h001.0gQXldpbyT0RJa4yXHCO4w3xaieJbhtZ2NA1oC2jOT4>.
The guest speaker will be Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing, and a former member of Trevor Davies Branch. Tim will be speaking about the history of manufacturing in the Darlington area, and the how the Albanese Government's flagship Future Made in Australia policy will shape manufacturing into the future.
Draft Waterloo People and Place Plan - feedback now until June 14 2024
Homes NSW has extended the period for feedback on its Waterloo South People and Place Plan by two weeks. The Draft Plan is accessible on the Homes NSW Waterloo website under the People and Place tab at the bottom of the page at https://www.dpie.nsw.gov.au/land-and-housing-corporation/greater-sydney/waterloo.
You can provide your feedback to Homes NSW by email to Waterlooconnect at homes.nsw.gov.au<mailto:Waterlooconnect at homes.nsw.gov.au> or over the phone by calling (02) 9384 4134 or in person at the Waterloo Connect office. The Waterloo Connect Office is open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10am to 4pm.
REDWatch encourages people who are concerns about the people aspects of the Waterloo South redevelopment to take this opportunity to raise those concerns and to suggest actions Homes NSW should take to address those concerns.
You can read some of REDWatch's concern about this draft plan at the end of this email.
Customer journey mapping & what it can tell us about service systems
One of the helpful tools used by the Waterloo Human Services Collaborative, with the help of Customer Service NSW, has been Customer Journey mapping. You can see some information from a workshop held for agencies and some examples of customer journey maps on the Customer Service Toolkit page<https://waterloo2017.com/customer-service-toolkit/> of the Collaborative's website at www.waterloo2017.com<http://www.waterloo2017.com>
Recently the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) held a webinar with Monique Rappell and Kat Goldsworthy on Customer Journey Mapping and what it can tell us about our service systems. Given many agency people found the customer journey mapping workshop useful, the recording of the AIFS session might also be of interest. It is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLcFuEmN4ps
Improving access to Community Rooms
One of the thought to be "low hanging fruit" in the Waterloo Action Plan is 2.7 to make better use of existing community infrastructure and its availability and use for community outcomes. For example reinvigorate community rooms and common areas and public spaces to bring community together.
Getting community rooms open after Covid has proved to be far from simple and this action is dragging on. In the last week access to community rooms became a major issue and lobbying was strong when the public housing community got together at the Redfern Waterloo Volunteer awards. Homes NSW had written to some existing users of community rooms telling them they were unauthorised persons and had unauthorised access to community rooms. The letter provided seven days' notice for rekeying the locks and removing any items in the rooms not belonging to Homes NSW.
One group impacted were users of the Marton room which has several large commercial fridges that are used for food distribution. They quickly started an online petition and within the 7 days claimed victory posting a picture<https://www.change.org/p/give-our-community-centres-back-to-waterloo/u/32626265> of senior Homes NSW people when they were allowed to continue to use the room.
There are lots of long term usage arrangements for Homes NSW facilities around the estate, but not a great corporate memory within Government of for whom and how they were set up. Hopefully Homes NSW, which has carriage of the action to get community facilities open, can ensure not only that closed can be accessed in the near future but also that those that are already in use remain open while it updates its records and reviews community room uses
Volunteers needed for temperature monitoring in Social Housing
REDWatch mentioned this a few months ago. We have again been approached by the researchers from Sydney University looking for social housing tenants interested in a citizen science project about environmental monitoring in their social housing. Below are the details if you want to express interest.
Project: The power of People: Revolutionising environmental monitoring through Citizen Science
Aim: High temperatures increase energy consumption for cooling, which can be increased by urban overheating, building characteristics, and local climatic conditions. The University of Sydney is interested in understanding occupants' comfort and wellbeing at home and enhance the local area's resilience to environmental change by supporting communities in improving their homes and neighbourhoods.
Research project and participants: If you are a social housing resident and live in the City of Sydney particularly in suburbs like Glebe, Redfern, Waterloo/Alexandria, and Surry Hills/Ultimo, we invite you to participate.
The study involves installing sensors in your home to monitor temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, etc., and completing a survey with one member of your household. Furthermore, residents living in the same neighbourhood will collaborate to measure and assess outdoor climatic conditions in the immediate open spaces of their dwellings (short walk). To show appreciation to participants, gift cards will be provided.
Register your interest: Please contact Dr. Shamila Haddad via email Shamila.haddad at sydney.edu.au<mailto:Shamila.haddad at sydney.edu.au>.
Australia wide Petition to Unions for Community-led Green Bans to Defend & Extend Public Housing
A national coalition of grassroots housing groups launched a national petition campaign on April 1, which aims to involve unions in defending and extending public housing.
The "Fix the Housing Crisis" petition calls on unions in construction, electrical, plumbing and the public sector to support community-led green bans, as well as to refuse to demolish public housing and defend public housing tenants against evictions. You can see and sign the petition here<http://houseyou.org/defend-public-housing/>.
Some further REDWatch comments on the People and Place Plan
You may have already seen REDWatch Initial comments on the People and Place Plan<http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/Waterloo/lahc22-23/240426redwc>. Subsequent comments were also made in the South Sydney Herald online in Can the Waterloo South People and Place Plan deliver?<https://southsydneyherald.com.au/can-the-waterloo-south-people-and-place-plan-deliver/>
Prior to the REDWatch meeting about this Plan, REDWatch produced some Focus Group Questions for Draft Waterloo South People and Place Plan<http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/Waterloo/lahc22-23/240502redwq>. Similar questions have now been used to facilitate discussions with Groundswell Agencies and with the tenants only portion of the Waterloo Redevelopment Group. These questions might be helpful for people preparing their own feedback. Another approach suggested is to think in terms of what you want to Keep, Change or Add as you review the plan. REDWatch has not prepared its submission as yet and we are keen to hear from others about their concerns.
Following a recent Homes NSW presentation and discussion with other Groundswell agencies , it seems to us that this plan is really a Waterloo South project plan and not really a People and Place Plan for all Waterloo social housing tenants during and after the redevelopment. This raises concerns about the People and Place issues the redevelopment brings for the surrounding community, the interaction between the public housing and Community Housing Provider tenants, and how the Waterloo People and Place plan will mesh and cooperate with the Waterloo Human Service Plan that is looking at current issues, which will persist irrespective of who the social housing tenant's land lord is.
Here are some thoughts on items REDWatch would currently like to see added.
1)      Health Facilities built into the plan - From the planning for the redevelopment of the Metro site there has been recognition of the important opportunity to have a Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) run a "Health One" or similar in the Waterloo redevelopment. This option is in the current Collaborative Action Plan as Action 2.6 but it is not specifically mentioned in the People and Place Plan. The People and Place Action 4.4 is to "Enable the local community to access affordable health services". This action seems to bundle the responsibilities of SLHD and the Public Health Network (PHN) which is responsible for doctors and primary health care into a single action. There should be a commitment to providing a base for a SLHD "Health One" or similar for the delivery of local health services, in addition to a costed plan for how bulk billing doctors will be provided into an area the redevelopment plans will further gentrify.
2)      LAHC has agreed to Waterloo Renewal Principles February 2023<http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/Waterloo/lahc22-23/230222gswrg/view> with local services and the Waterloo Redevelopment Group over. These were based on earlier work by The Tenants Union NSW and Shelter NSW over a state wide compact that Minister Jackson has shown interest in. Back in 2016 LAHC agreed to a Waterloo Stakeholder and Engagement Framework<http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/Waterloo/2016waterloo/161205cpse/view> but were unable to deliver on it. The People and Place plan must include undertakings that Homes NSW and its consortium partners will operate within the Waterloo Renewal Principles and any state level compact that might be developed.
3)      While the Human Services Action Plan, prepared by the Waterloo Human Services Collaborative, is referenced on page 8 of the draft, it is plain from subsequent presentations that how the Waterloo South People and Place Plan interacts with the Collaborative action plan has not been considered. Clearly the challenges facing tenant's access to human services do not go away because of the redevelopment; they are only likely to be exacerbated. So the People and Place Plan needs to cover how the Waterloo South Plan will interact with the Collaborative's plan to help address the areas current human service challenges and any changes resulting from the redevelopment. The Plan should commit the CHPs and development partners to participation in the implementing the Waterloo Action Plan and helping address the issues it identifies. It should also commit to a process for work to marry up at a detailed level the Collaborative Action Plan and relevant aspects of the Waterloo South People and Place Plan as well as a coordination mechanism between the two plans.
4)      The People and Place Plan is primarily about Waterloo South. While it recognises the rest of the "Estate" it is silent on the 500+ public housing units to the east of the estate some of which border areas to be redeveloped. The People and Place Plan needs to deal with, and resource, the additional human service needs that come from the disruption and anxiety caused by the redevelopment. In many places it is assumed that unspecified "service providers" will help with the delivery of the Waterloo South People and Place Plan, but there is no indication of how already stretched services will be funded to undertake additional work created by the redevelopment.
5)      Some of the undertakings are difficult to understand, due to ambiguity about which group(s) of tenants are being referred to and also about if Homes NSW refers to Homes NSW Portfolio (old LAHC)  which deals with the redevelopment or Homes NSW Services (old DCJ Housing) which only deals with public housing tenants. So for example someone might think that a reference to Homes NSW working with tenants might be about Homes NSW Services working with public housing tenants outside Waterloo South when it actually refers to Home NSW Portfolio working with CHP tenants. For clarity, the Plan needs to distinguish which tenant cohorts and which parts of Homes NSW will be involved in each action.
6)      The redevelopment model creates two different tenant cohorts - the existing public housing cohort and a new CHP cohort. Services tenants can access will in large part be determined by who their landlord is. CHPs will be expected to run their own tenant participation program and this is usually not independent of landlord. Support for public housing tenant participation is provided independently of Homes NSW by Mission Australia for the public housing Neighbourhood Advisory Board. CHPs will also be expected to provide wrap around support for its tenants while public housing tenants continue in the current fractured system the Collaborative is trying to address. Many issues, including Health and Wellbeing and Community safety, do not totally depend on who your landlord is. The People and Place Plan needs to commit to minimising the difference in supports between these two cohorts of people. Equity in supports and access must be central to a people and place plan for the entirety of Waterloo social housing, rather than a two tier system depending on the landlord. The plan also needs to commit to mechanisms for social housing tenants to meet and work together on non-tenancy issues of common concern. The Waterloo Safety Action Group and the Waterloo Redevelopment Group are examples of existing tenant groups, currently under the NAB that deal with tenant issues unrelated to who their landlord is.
The People and Place Plan needs to capture more accurate data about the Public Housing people in the place. Using suburb wide data for Waterloo or combined with Redfern for Aboriginal people does not accurately capture the complex mix of the people government policy places into public housing nor the high concentration of Aboriginal people in the area being redeveloped. Redeveloping an area that has a concentration of people with complex needs has to inform how the redevelopment happens and the people part of the plan. For example at a suburb level 9% of Census respondents said they had a mental health condition, in Waterloo South it was 18.59%, even this was less than the 35.5% of Waterloo public housing tenants who self-reported a mental health condition in a recent Waterloo survey. That same survey found only 21% of tenants surveyed had no long term health conditions compared to 65% in the suburb from the last Census. An accurate picture of the people needs to be factored in to the people and place plan. Survey and Homes NSW data should be used if available. If ABS figures are to be used they should include data for statistical areas that overlap Waterloo South. The limitations of any data set should be recognised.
The current need for the developer to employ police at the Waterloo Metro site to manage interactions between the developer and the local community should indicate the need to properly understand the local community and to have a people and place plan in place that understands and works with the local community in its complexity.

Regards,

Geoff
Geoffrey Turnbull
REDWatch Co-Spokesperson
Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490  Mob: 0418 457 392
email: spokesperson at redwatch.org.au<mailto:spokesperson at redwatch.org.au>
web: www.redwatch.org.au<http://www.redwatch.org.au/>
FB: www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/<http://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/>

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