Five Ways Caravan Park is closing and for some of its residents, their sense of sadness at leaving their friends is mixed with the growing anxiety of being yet to find new homes.
“I’ve got nowhere to go,” Richard Szabatura said. It’s a situation that applies to more than a few of the caravan and cabin-dwellers of the 52-year-old park in Dingley Village, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.
Some occupants fear they’ll be homeless from August 25, the date they must vacate to make way for a new housing development.
The park’s owner, AlphaMAC Property Group, has lodged plans with Kingston City Council to build a residential village with 56 movable dwellings plus a two-storey communal building which includes five apartments.
Szabatura, a pensioner, is getting worried, as he said rental prices for houses or units were too expensive and he had not found vacant sites at other parks.
“At the start of the year you say, ‘I’ve got until August to find something’, but now August is just around the corner, and you think, ‘Hang on, I’ve got nowhere to go’,” he said.
“I’m thinking, ‘Will I have to park the caravan on the street and live like that?’”
Another resident, using the pseudonym Mark for fear of early eviction if he speaks out, estimated up to 30 Five Ways residents, including himself, have yet to secure new digs.
“A lot of people are really stressed,” said Mark, who suffers from ill health.
“[Victorian Premier] Jacinta Allan seems to be spending a lot on tunnels and their roads and not fixing the housing problem.”
Mark said a bedsit-style flat, one of 12 rooms off a corridor, that one agency offered him in a bayside suburb seemed “no bigger than a prison cell” for $380 a week.
He said the council had helped him look for housing, however “I’m not going to move to the western suburbs because I’ve got my health specialists here”.
Mark said his caravan, his home for more than 20 years, was too fragile to tow, so he couldn’t take it with him.
Another resident, Lynette Naude, is distraught that she can neither stay in the “beautiful and peaceful” park, nor relocate their cabin, which she owns and has lovingly furnished.
Naude said she and her partner, Cameron Gollings, haven’t found anywhere to move their cabin, even if they could afford to transport it, which they can’t.
Naude, a disability pensioner, said they also hadn’t found a rental flat or house.
“There’s a stigma when you’re on Centrelink,” she said, referring to herself (Gollings is a panel beater).
“Your applications for places are never successful. People turn their noses up.”
Another resident fearing homelessness, John, blamed the housing crisis, specifically a lack of affordable options in Melbourne.
“It’s very disappointing and disheartening,” he said.
John said he was offered “half a shoebox apartment” as a rental, which didn’t sound promising.
Geoff Bryant, a Five Ways resident of 17 years, said he would try to sell his cabin “because I can’t find anywhere else to put it”.
Bryant loves the birdlife at his current home and a tree that changes colour in autumn. He said he would miss his friends.
“It’s more than a place to live, it’s a community,” he said.
There are 85 sites at Five Ways, about half of which currently host permanent residents.
The owner of the caravan park, who leases the land, declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the state government’s housing department said it was working with the council and local service providers to help the residents.
“Residents have been provided with information, housing options, funding for removalists and assistance in completing Victorian Housing Register applications,” the spokesperson said.
Kingston City Council said in a statement: “Council shares community concern that some caravan park residents are facing challenge and uncertainty since the announced changes at the privately owned and operated site. We are not a specialised housing service and can’t directly place people into housing.”
This masthead attempted to contact AlphaMAC for comment.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
