Caravan park residents want recognition
Older Victorians have increasingly turned to living in caravan parks as affordable housing and now welfare groups are seeking greater protection for them from the state government.
Around 7,000 Victorians, many of them single, are living in the caravan parks and State Consumer Affairs Minister, Tony Robinson, said such homes were recognised “around the country and internationally as a growing form of long-term and permanent accommodation”.
However problems have arisen with a sub-set of the industry known as “residential villages” which are purpose-built estates where residents purchase what is technically a “moveable dwelling” and enter into a residential lease for the land with park management.
Welfare organisations are concerned about such lease arrangements which operate under the Residential Tenancies Act without specific guidelines covering long-term caravan park residents.
Housing worker, Jeff Fiedler, told The Age newspaper that “everyone feels like they’re living in limbo because you don’t know which legislation you’re covered by and you don’t know if you’ve got security of tenure or not”.
In lobbying the state government for 50-year leases for people who may have spent $100,000 or more purchasing estate cottages, he said “we felt that was providing them peace of mind because if you’ve got security of tenure then there can’t be repercussions against you if you speak out against anything”.
Bob Purvis, who lives in a park in regional Victoria, told The Age “all we’re asking for is clarification so that at our age we’ve got peace of mind. Let us enjoy the rest of our lives whether its one year or ten. But at this stage nobody knows and it affects people’s health”.
