Posted on 09/02/2009 10:15:11 PM PDT by naturalman1975
A TERRITORY teenager says she has been kicked out of her government flat just days after her dad died.
Rachael Pazos said Territory Housing staff left her sitting in the stairwell of the Shier St flat in The Narrows she has lived in for the last four years.
The flat was boarded up and the locks changed, with washing still hanging on the line on the balcony last night.
Housing Department executive director Darwin region Fiona Chamberlain apologised and said Rachael should not have been kicked out.
Rachael, aged 14, said she was returning home to unit 43 around 4pm when she saw a man in the unit.
"The Housing Commission was inside," she said, "They said I had to get my stuff out of the house."
"They said I had ten minutes."
Crowds of neighbours rushed out to watch the unfolding drama. Local MLA Dave Tollner was called and attended.
Rachael said her father died on Friday and just hours after she was informed on Monday, a Territory Housing official visited to confirm the news.
"He came and asked if my dad passed away, I said yes, then he said he would do all he had to to help," she said.
Rachael said she was shocked to be booted out by the same official just two days later.
"I started crying and getting angry," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ntnews.com.au ...
I find it hard to believe a 14 year old child was even left alone after her father died. Australia's childrens welfare workers, like those in many other places it seems sometimes overreact and interfere where they shouldn't, but this is a case where they should have been involved.
Canadian Government Homecare.
And this is what a father leaves to his daughter?
Socialized housing that you get kicked out of as soon as the body is cold?
Oh,jeez. Now I see that it is in Aussie-Land.
Pretty much the same though.
Amazing what a govt can be good at when they want to. :(
Was she supposed to take care of herself at 14 even if they allowed her to stay, and judging by the picture, she looks older than 14.
At 14, she’s supposed to be in care. They have some discretion once the child is 16 (if they judge the child is capable, they can be allowed to live alone but even then, there’s supposed to be monitoring).
Another sneak peek at Obamanism.
Actually, Darwin is about the only place in Australia where ‘public housing’ makes sense. It was just about the only way to rebuild the city after it was destroyed in 1974 (and strategically it needed to be rebuilt), but that created an odd housing market where non-public housing is incredibly overpriced.
It perhaps was an easier short term fix. Insurance and rebuilding and private ownership is the answer. Something to tend and pass on to posterity, not something you use and then they get kicked out of as soon as you kick it.
ping
Ah, the warm embrace of socialism and the understanding of liberalism. Ain’t it grand. /sarc
She looks closer to 19 in the video.
It's so far from everywhere else that investors just don't build rental houses there - even though they could get much higher rents than in most other places, it's not worth the hassle.
Darwin is over nearly one and a half thousand miles from any Australian city with more than 100,000 people. That creates a lot of issues that require special solutions.
She looks it, but she isn’t.
I just cannot imagine that kind of life. Of having nothing to give to the next generation but a government billet.
I hope so too - there also might be quite a lot of money saved up somewhere, or investments - in Darwin, just because somebody is in public housing, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have assets. But a 14 year old kid can't just access these things. Somebody needs to be helping her.
I was orphaned when I was nine so I do take a keen interest in child welfare issues, and what has happened in this case is just unacceptable. She shouldn't have been left in the house alone, let alone kicked out of it.
Sorry for you loss. Yes, if her father was in Darwin to work and living in public housing hopefully he has saved assets to give to his daughter.
And hopefully she has family she can go to, FAR more important than money. Nobody is at more risk than a young lady with no father and living with a non biologically related male.
Sorry but if the market would not rebuild Darwin after it was destroyed, then public housing as usual did not make sense. Now possibly the government could have provided special tax breaks or other encouragements to rebuild, but public housing never makes sense.
If you need a military base there for some strategic reason, then build a base not public housing.
"Hey bureaucrat, go give her compassion."
"Okay."
"Hey bureaucrat, go throw her on the street."
"Okay."
If you see professionalism in this behavior, instead of the horror of the end of the world with billions dead, then congratulations - you're a bureaucrat!
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