An Afghan woman suffering a "legacy of anxiety and depression" because of the Taliban's murder of her mother has been denied a place on the ACT's most urgent public housing list.
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The woman and her husband left Afghanistan and came to Australia as refugees in 2009. However, the trauma of the woman's past was still with her when she moved to Canberra in 2012.
Her mother was killed when she was a child. The woman still suffers insomnia, nightmares, mood swings and random angry outbursts.
She and her husband are renting an apartment in the ACT but have fallen into significant debt.
The husband has not worked, he says, because of a wrist injury not properly treated from his childhood, and the pair have relied on welfare payments to sustain themselves.
They applied for public housing in November 2012 but were placed in the "high needs" category, rather than the more urgent "priority" list.
They asked for three reviews of the decision to keep them off the priority list, and eventually took the battle to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which held a hearing last month.
The couple argued their first-floor rental unit was not suitable for the family; the stairs were bad for the woman, who was pregnant and had a bad back, and the unit was dangerous and unsuitable for their children.
The woman said the uncertainty of the financial and housing situation was aggravating her anxiety and distress.
The family had four people living in two rooms, and they had no money to look for another unit.
However, the tribunal last week confirmed the decision to deny them a place on the most urgent list.
It said the couple had not properly looked at other rental accommodation, and that the husband could work, but had not sought a job.
"The tribunal considers it would have been reasonable for the applicants and the husband to have taken these actions," it wrote in a decision published on Thursday.
"The tribunal is not satisfied that the applicants' needs cannot be resolved by any reasonable means other than the early provision of social housing."
It said they were likely eligible for the rental rebate scheme, which would have saved them money and possibly allow them to start making headway into their debt.
The tribunal also noted the family could make another application for priority housing when their baby was born later this year.
But, for the moment, the decision leaves them on a public housing list with a lengthy waiting time.
Data for the 2013-14 financial year shows those on the high needs transfer list could wait almost three years before getting housing.
There were 586 applicants on the high needs transfer list last month.
However, the priority transfer list is far faster.
There were 96 applicants on the priority transfer list last month. They would wait just less than a year on average.
The total waiting list for public, community and affordable housing in the ACT was 2300.
That included 166 applications for priority housing, 1438 for high needs housing, and 696 for standard housing.