‘Vulnerable clientele’: Newtown boarding house fire puts spotlight on sector

Ian Mineall was listening to talkback radio on Tuesday morning when he learned of a fire at a boarding house on Probert Street, Newtown, in Sydney's inner west.

"I know two boarding houses on that street," he says. He hoped it wasn't his old place. "It was."

The shocking inferno at the 14-room Vadja House left three people dead. Eight residents managed to escape, including one 80-year-old man who was in a critical condition after jumping out of a window before having a heart attack.

Police have since charged a former resident with three counts of murder and one count of destroying or damaging property by fire or explosive. The owner of the property has not been accused of any wrongdoing and is not facing charges.

Advocates say the tragedy has once again placed the spotlight on the plight of those living in what are often dilapidated, unsafe homes.

Boarding house residents share a kitchen and living space, rarely have their own bathroom, and for these reasons are technically considered homeless by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

But because rooms cater to individuals who may struggle to gain a lease in a private rental, prices can actually be above market rates.

"Boarding houses are at the end of the day only ever an option B," says the Shelter NSW chief executive, John Engeler.

"They're better than the alternative, rough sleeping, but they're not an [option] A."

Most residents tend to be older men like Mineall. And like Mineall, about a third are on the disability pension, according to Homelessness NSW chief executive Katherine McKernan, who argues most people are only living in boarding houses due to the "dearth of social housing".

"Sometimes they have an intellectual disability or another disability that makes it difficult for them to advocate for themselves, so they can be exploited," says McKernan.

Paul Adabie, of the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, which provides in-reach social services to many boarding house residents in the area, says boarding houses "vary a great deal in quality".

The centre's chief executive, Liz Yeo, also underlines this point. "It's not a sector you can paint with one brush," says Yeo, whose organisation is widely praised for the work it does with operators to improve conditions.

Mineall lived at the Newtown boarding house from 1989 to 2018. He served as the caretaker, meaning he got a "bit off the rent". He was also responsible for "collecting the rents, doing a bit of cleaning", and was sometimes required to inform people they were being evicted. He was sometimes threatened when he did so, he says.

Mineall says the house had "deteriorated a bit" since he left, though he acknowledged repairs had been done on multiple occasions.

Yeo described conditions at the property as "terrible".

One issue Mineall pointed to was "a hole in the kitchen roof". "Nearly every time it rained the water would build up and go over to the kitchen and a few bits of stuff would come down," he says.

Guardian Australia does not suggest the condition of the home was a factor in the fatal fire. The Inner West council has confirmed the property had a current fire compliance certificate.

In 2012, NSW introduced the Boarding Houses Act, which created a compulsory register and laws governing the rights and responsibilities of occupants and proprietors.

McKernan says the legislation itself is "relatively good". "The issue is it is not enforced".

"The register hovers around 1,000 boarding houses but we think a lot are unregistered," says Yeo. The Newtown property ravaged by fire was registered with the government.

Another key problem is there is insufficient incentive for local councils to act as a watchdog, say experts.

Chris Martin, a housing policy expert at UNSW, says some are also mindful that closing a place down can mean "making a group of people homeless".

Martin would like to see an accreditation regime to regulate who can operate boarding houses.

The idea was floated in an ongoing review of the Boarding Houses Act, which is being overhauled to include other similar settings as the "Shared Accomodation Act". Martin says it has not been picked up by government.

"[Boarding house operators] are involved in managing relations between multiple people in shared space, which calls for a higher order of skill and capability than individual landlords," Martin says.

"And also it is a sector that caters to a relatively vulnerable clientele."

Adabie also backed the idea of a licensing regime, while Engeler, of Shelter NSW, believes only community housing providers should have rights to run boarding houses.

Martin also notes the state government discontinued the Boarding House Financial Assistance Program in 2019, which included a specific part of that program on fire safety upgrades.

While many outsiders consider boarding houses to be problematic, Newtown Neighbourhood Centre research has found many residents are relatively satisfied. Many judged others as worse off than themselves.

"You'd be surprised," says Adabie. "Even with this fire [in Newtown], people don't want to go to housing, they want to stay in the boarding house sector because of their history."

Mineall describes his experience as "at times stressful, at times not too bad". "There was often a sense of community," he says.

But other times it was tough. "Some of the people would leave their homes in a horrific mess," he says. "The mess is one thing I really do remember. I had the job of cleaning up that mess."

Mineall adds that he had "easily the best room the house" and insisted he got a "pretty good deal".

He still wants to see more regulation of the sector. "I really think boarding houses should be inspected a bit more often," he says. "There should be more stringent rules applied."

Mineall is now in a home run by Anglicare, which he says he much prefers. It is still a shared property, but there are staff on hand to help the residents.

If it weren't for the social housing shortage, though, he might have his own place.

About five years ago he enquired about social housing at an office in Broadway and "was told it was a 15-year wait".

"I looked at the calendar, and I thought, 'Fifteen years, I'm going to be 75 by the time I get into housing commission,'" he says. "So I pulled the pin on that pretty quick."