Olympics gold has homeless in cold

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Sydney's poor are being swept from their homes ahead of the Olympic Games, a report claimed yesterday.

The report, by the University of Technology's Centre for Independent Journalism, cited soaring rents, big increases in evictions and increased pressure on the city's homeless in a bleak picture of life behind the glamour of the Games.

Housing in the Olympic corridor is now unaffordable for poor people, it says.

Church groups have warned that crisis accommodation will be stretched beyond breaking point, with relief organisations such as Anglicare already reporting difficulty in finding room for the homeless in hostels, boarding houses and even small hotels.

Uniting Church mission staff have also reported a sharp increase in appeals for help by people evicted from their homes, with long waiting lists for public housing adding to the pressure of rocketing rents.

The report says that an estimated 30,000 people are now homeless in New South Wales - most of them in Sydney - and with a waiting list of more than 100,000 families, the supply of public housing is declining.

While the number of rental properties has increased by almost 25 per cent in the past five years, low-cost housing has been disappearing at the rate of about 10 per cent a year.

According to Dr Peter Phibbs, lecturer in town planning at the University of Sydney, the Olympics have accelerated the trend - with devastating effects on the poor.

Some of the evicted people end up on the street, he says in the report. Losing their accommodation has a particularly destabilising effect on them.

Across Sydney, the report says, average rents last year rose by about $A20 ($25) a week.

But in the Olympic corridor - the wedge of the city most affected by the Games - the renovation and gentrification of traditionally bluecollar suburbs such as Strathfield has pushed up rents by 38 per cent.

According to the New South Wales Tenants Union, eviction threats rose by almost 50 per cent in 1998-99, with a big increase in evictions over the past 12 months in the inner city and eastern suburbs such as Bondi.

Examples of rent rises the report cites include increases of $A150 a week in Paddington, $A50 in Surrey Hills and $A80 in Glebe.

The report says people living in boarding houses and sharing large houses were being hit hardest, with many being forced on to the streets by renovations which were clearly Olympics-related.

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