Kimberley leaders sceptical of WA government, opposition housing focus amid chronic overcrowding
Belinda Sampi in the lounge room where her son has to sleep. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
In short:
Government housing tenants in northern WA say they suspect they will be forgotten again in the lead-up to the state election.
The state government has made a pre-election pitch to build more social and affordable housing.
What's next?
Community leaders in the Kimberley want the government to ensure new homes are built in culturally appropriate ways.
Nathan McIvor says he feels no sense of relief when the West Australian government announces more money for social and affordable housing because it rarely helps remote communities in the state's north.
When the WA government announced its re-election pitch this week, more social and affordable housing was front and centre.
But Mr McIvor, chief executive of Djarindjin Aboriginal Corporation, said the community, 200 kilometres north of Broome, was not eligible and had not had new homes for decades.
Instead, as the Djarindjin population grows, the community has been dealing with severe overcrowding in almost every household.
Nathan McIvor. (ABC Kimberley: Andrew Seabourne)
ABS data from 2016 and 2021 show 30 per cent of Aboriginal households in the Kimberley were overcrowded, three times higher than state and national averages.
"We've got 44 houses and roughly 300 to 350 people — that speaks for itself," Mr McIvor said.
In Djardindjin, complex land use agreements mean most of their land is government or pastoral-owned, hindering the community's capacity to build.
Djarindjin has 44 houses for more than 300 people, says Mr McIvor. (ABC News: Erin Parke)
"We've got people wanting to come back to country or work for Djarindjin … but we just don't have the accommodation to be able to house them," Mr McIvor said.
Conflict for residents
Djarindjin resident Belinda Sampi has never lived in a house with enough rooms for her children.
When she first moved to the community where her partner is from, the couple lived in a two-bedroom house with five children so half of them slept in the lounge.
Ms Sampi says overcrowding in too-few rooms causes friction. (ABC Kimberley: Rosanne Maloney)
In every home since, they've adjusted who sleeps where, using cultural protocols to determine bed arrangements, but always needing beds in the lounge.
"It just caused a lot of conflicts within the household," Ms Sampi said.
"[We were] constantly just arguing over things because no-one felt they had their privacy."
Ms Sampi has set up several beds in the lounge each night over years in order to accomodate her family and attempt to follow cultural protocols.
Culturally appropriate homes
Bunuba elder Clifton Bieundurry is the founder of Studio Kinship, which has created a housing model using prefabricated homes that allow Aboriginal people to practise cultural protocols at home.
Kinship systems vary among groups, but they all require certain family members to avoid interactions with each other or set out chains of authority.
As a result, residents avoid entering homes, move to different houses, or spend their days at other family members' homes where the matriarch lives.
Clifton Bieundurry and Lisa Anne Halton. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)
Mr Bieundurry said Western models did not accommodate larger family units or function based on kinship systems.
"You're building a square hole for a round block," he said.
Mr Bieundurry said living arrangements forced people to break cultural protocol, which had a "ripple effect" on families and communities with young people exposed to "bad behaviours".
Those kids, he said, saw "little to no authority" and were disconnected from their culture into adulthood.
"I strongly believe that's why we have a very large Aboriginal incarceration rate in this country, especially in the juvenile space," Mr Bieundurry said.
More control given to communities
A Department of Communities spokesperson said 94 social homes had been built in the Kimberley since 2021 and 20 were under contract or construction.
They said 50 social housing dwellings had undergone significant refurbishments since mid-2020.
The spokesperson did not clarify if these efforts applied to housing in remote Aboriginal communities or town-based dwellings.
They said $350 million of state government funding had gone into the Remote Aboriginal Communities Fund, which aimed to "improve essential services and increase housing availability".
The spokesperson said a "significant body of work" around culturally appropriate housing was "utilised" prior to construction.
The ABC also put questions to Housing Minister John Carey and Premier Roger Cook but was directed to the response from the Department of Communities.
Mr McIvor said years of pressing for solutions from governments to improve circumstances had resulted in minimal support.
He said there needed to be more control over housing in the hands of communities to ensure taxpayer money was not wasted on solutions not designed to fit needs.
"There's an argument there that says, even if we did have control over the houses, would we have the capacity to be able to maintain the houses to the standard that the state is currently?" Mr McIvor said.
"Well, we couldn't be any worse off, I'll be honest with you."