Boarding houses: the neighbours nobody wants

By GEOFF CUMMING

Horror stories from inside the boarding house: the bed wetter who won't let the manager change the mattress; the alcoholic locked in his room for his own protection; the tenant whose undisclosed mental illness gradually surfaces.

Then there is the flea pit where the hot water is turned off all night to reduce overheads.

Property investor John Perera says he can understand Mt Eden residents, including Prime Minister Helen Clark, objecting to a large lodge development in their backyard. Last month, however, the Auckland City Council approved the three-storey lodge despite 100 objections.

"No neighbour would be happy to have a boarding house next door," says Mr Perera, who has owned several. "The value of the adjoining property immediately goes down because of the type of tenant."

But for every scruffy premises, there are well-kept ones with respectable tenants, say property industry sources who claim the seedy image is more myth than reality.

In deregulated New Zealand, however, it all depends on the owner.

The 90 occupants of Epsom Lodge in Newmarket have a caring landlord, the Salvation Army. Most of their benefit money is assigned to the Sallies in return for a basic bed, three meals a day, laundry, and facilities such as a common room.

Chris Snow, 23, recently returned there after a failed experiment living "out in the real world." His troubles began after his parents split up, and he needs a supervised environment while he undergoes rehabilitation.

Manager Captain Brent Diack says ex-prisoners, people with mental illnesses and alcoholics use the all-male facility as a stepping stone back into the community. "We do vet the guys who come here. Violent people are not allowed to stay."

But there is growing concern that such people are forced to stay in unsupervised boarding houses around Auckland where they cannot get the help they need.

The Mental Health Commission stated as much in a report last year, saying boarding houses and hostels were filling a gap left by the lack of public sector alternatives.

"While some landlords take on a support role for mentally ill tenants, many houses operate with minimal facilities and no support services. The environment can be unsafe and exploitative, with tenants assigning control of their lives, including money management."

Women are particularly vulnerable. A 1997 study found that 82 per cent of women in Auckland boarding houses had been sexually harassed and 65 per cent were pressured for sex.

Almost three-quarters felt unsafe.

Janet Lake, of the Auckland District Council of Social Services, says such premises are the unhappy face of community care.

"When you empty out institutions and make radical changes in mental health, you end up with boarding houses filled with people who are not very good at caring for themselves."

While providers of "supported housing" get financial help from the Health Funding Authority, many mentally ill people end up in boarding houses where the quality of care varies with the landlord.

And because they are commercial premises, they are not covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, and tenants have fewer protections such as security of tenure.

In legislative terms, boarding houses seem to have fallen between the cracks. Since buildings legislation was amended in the mid-1990s, they are no longer subject to licensing by local bodies. The onus is on the owner to obtain an annual "warrant of fitness" covering building safety from an independent inspector.

Auckland chief fire safety officer Ian Braggins says many are ageing timber structures and classified as high risk. Those housing more than five people need an approved evacuation scheme, and potentially dangerous premises can be closed, as happened after a 1996 fire in a Symonds St hostel.

Mr Braggins says the Fire Service has noticed a disturbing trend in recent months, with some very poor buildings needing remedial action.

"There are huge differences in what we know as boarding houses, and it comes down to the owners. In many cases the owners are absentees and only interested in whatever rent they can get. They do little in the way of maintenance. But if you get cooperative landlords, it's fine."

In Mt Eden, locals are now debating whether Eden Park Lodge, whose expansion they opposed, should still be regarded as a boarding house. Owners Ronald La Pread and Farideh Khoi have invested much in refurbishing the existing complex. Rents have increased and tenants now include Asian students, a far cry from past troubled souls whom neighbours treated with caution.

Marketing for their planned three-storey extension is aimed at professionals, tradespeople and students. Rents are likely to be set accordingly, perhaps easing the fears of locals, including the Prime Minister, of unsupervised transients.

Some suggest the big new building was described as "non-permanent" boarding house accommodation to escape a levy the council imposes on other multiple dwellings.

But if Eden Park Lodge is going upmarket, the area has its share of standard boarding houses.

Submitters to the lodge resource consent hearing listed eight similar lodges and guesthouses within a kilometre or so, as well as two psychiatric homes, a drug rehabilitation home and a number of rest-homes.

In Auckland, such facilities are increasingly concentrated in established residential areas with big homes on big sites where land values may not encourage redevelopment.

A decade ago, central Auckland had nearly 100 boarding houses and hostels offering 3800 beds. Some suspect that the number has risen with an increase in poverty and community care of the mentally ill. And the accommodation supplement ensures landlords reliable rent.

But with councils no longer keeping licensing records, no one knows how many premises there are.

Mr Perera, Wellington-based president of the Property Investors Association, says boarding houses are no goldmine. In Wellington, the number of beds has declined because of low returns and rising property values, he says.

"There are many hassles involved in running a boarding house. As a landlord, you are always being penalised because of the people you are dealing with."

It is not always easy to meet health and safety requirements when dealing with alcoholics and tenants with mental health problems, he says. As a landlord, he has been caught up in stabbings, a row over a tenant's dangerous heater and "a situation where someone pulled out a sword."

But estate agent Barry Preston says it is stupid to suggest all boarding house tenants are "down and outers."

"You are dealing with the bottom end of the rental market, not the bottom end of society," says Mr Preston, who has brokered a number of boarding house sales.

Many tenants choose a boarding house for the company of fellow residents and to escape the $200-a-week rent on a one-bedroom flat.

Mr Preston says there are many types of boarding house, all kinds of tenants - and many types of landlord.