An Altona disability pensioner is fighting her eviction from a public housing unit.
The tenant, who asked to go by the name Louise, said she had been told to vacate after her 28-year-old son with schizophrenia broke down her door.
Louise said her son was under a mental health treatment order and had nowhere to live.
“Because he’s in and out of hospital, because they haven’t been able to get him anywhere permanent to stay, the family’s been taking turns letting him stay,” she said.
“But this particular day, I could see he was unwell and they said to me, when he gets like that, ring the police and they’ll come and talk to him and take him to hospital.”
Louise said she locked herself in the bathroom and pushed a heavy table against the door until police arrived.
“By then, he’d got angry and kicked the door in,” Louise said.
“When something like that happens it goes under family violence.
“So police rang Yarra Housing’s after-hours number for emergency repairs to my door.”
Yarra Community Housing said the door was fire-rated and would take up to two weeks to replace, rendering the unit unsafe.
Western region manager Brett Bedson said Louise had been offered another vacant apartment in the building, but she did not want to move.
“The door is on a long list of damage and disruption that she and her son have caused to the property and to other tenants,” he said.
“We spent something like $4000 repairing the front fence and security gate after her son drove through them a month ago.
“This goes back over a couple of years now and the tenants are constantly complaining about her and her son – both of them, not just her son – and every time we try to engage with [Louise] we get the same response: she swears and hangs up.”
Yarra Community Housing successfully applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a possession order to have Louise evicted.
Louise has appealed the decision.
