Mathew Barber has a constant battle against chaos.
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He and his four children aged between nine and 17 live in a three-bedroom government-owned house. It is clean and well-kept, at least to the extent that Mathew who works as a stump grinder can manage in the circumstances.
But he says the circumstances are impossible - and particularly impossible for his children. His 14-year-old daughter has to share a bedroom with one of the sons. There is no room for cupboards so the children's clothes are in common areas on tables.
In this pressure-cooker situation, tempers erupt. He feels ashamed because he feels he is letting his children down. They are ashamed to bring school friends home.
"She blames me for the way we live," the father says of his daughter. "All the youngest knows is chaos."
Despite the tough conditions, it could be worse. Home is a refuge from violence and drug abuse in the wider family. The house might seem dismal to well-off people but for them it is home and a sanctuary.
He says he's been trying to convince the ACT government to allocate him a bigger place so the children can sleep in their own rooms after nine years. He says he has been "sent in circles", pushed from one part of the government to another, and then back again.
The wider problem
The amount of public housing in the ACT has fallen while the population has risen.
Figures just published by the Productivity Commission show that there were 10,827 public housing dwellings in the ACT in the latest year on record (2022-23) compared with 11,181 in 2017-18. That's an annual decline of 0.6 per cent.
In the same period, the population has risen from 423,000 to 466,800.
Public housing isn't the only type of housing available to low income people. There is also "community housing" which consists of low-rent properties managed by not-for profit organisations rather than the ACT government.
The number of these properties has risen in the ACT. In the last year, for example, community housing properties rose from 958 to 1695.
But the rise has not met the demand. Homelessness remains a problem.
The St Vincent de Paul Society said: "On census night in 2021 in the ACT, the Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 1777 people experiencing homelessness; 447 people living in 'severely' crowded dwellings; 882 people living in improvised dwellings, tents, or sleeping out and 126 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people experiencing homelessness."
Those bald statistics translate into human beings.
They are the busker in the Dickson shopping centre who lives in a car but who was hoping to upgrade to a van. They are the bundles of rags under the arcades of the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings at night.
And they are the people who might only dream of public housing in affluent Canberra.
Who's to blame?
There are two views.
One is that poor people in the ACT are invisible to the middle-class majority so they have no political clout. The other is that it's complicated. Both may be true.
The harsher view is held by former chief minister Jon Stanhope.
Just to talk to him is to hear his anger. He dams a dominant Labor government which has cut the amount of public housing. (It should be said that he was the ACT's Labor leader for 10 years until 2011, so he is laying into his successor).
"I can't understand the policy thinking and budgeting. I just can't understand it unless they simply don't care," he said.
He wonders whether Canberrans - some Canberrans - are as caring as they like to think they are.
"I must say that in moments of anguish I question whether we, the people of Canberra, are very comfortable with how hard life is for the bottom 40 per cent in Canberra," he said.
"There is a gap between who we claim to be and who we really are, those of us who are blessed to have our own home. I do worry about how we have allowed this to happen in Canberra."
The other, more charitable view is that the decline is a blip caused by a combination of factors.
Or as Housing Minister Yvette Berry (Labor) said in 2022: "A whole range of things have to match up together to get new houses built. To get people into homes you have to move people from homes, we have to demolish those homes, we have to sell those homes and we have to build new homes.
"All that doesn't happen in a nice straight line. It is a bumpy line."
When public housing becomes run down, replacing it means demolition and rebuilding, and that is part of the "bumpy line," the minister meant. In the meantime, so the argument runs, the number of houses may fall.
So what's to be done?
There's an election coming up. Polling day for the ACT Legislative Assembly is October 19.
Labor's policy is already outlined. It's been in government for nearly a quarter of a century and it has announced a plan to increase "affordable housing" which includes public housing but also not-for-profit sector housing and privately owned housing at low rents.
Last year, it said that $300 million would be allocated to "affordable housing initiatives", with the bulk of it ($233 million) going towards repairs of existing and construction of new public housing.
The Liberals are yet to announce their policy. Their spokesman said they would first need to see the ACT budget in the middle of the year before spending plans could be announced.
Liberal housing spokesman in the assembly Mark Parton said: "We haven't announced housing policy in a public space.
"We will make announcements in the coming weeks. We believe that the policy will result in more dwellings for people who need them."
If, on the other hand, Labor retains power, it has an opportunity because of the federal Labor government, according to Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
"We have an important window of time where federal and territory governments are aligned in recognising the vital importance of public, social and affordable housing," he said.
In November, the federal government announced its $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, promising to spend at least $500 million a year.
Some of that money could help the ACT reverse the decline of public housing if it chooses to do so.
But Dr Fotheringham (who advises state and federal governments on housing) wondered if that decline was only caused by inevitable glitches, as the ACT government claims.
"The declining number is a cause for concern and should signal to the ACT government the need to reinvigorate and reinvest to ensure that the supply of public housing is moving upward," he said.
But there is no doubt that much depends on political will. Policy alters lives for real people.