Yahoo Finance The Project hosts ridiculed for 'out of touch' reaction to controversial property plan
Renting advocate Jordan van den Berg hit back at the claim that homeless people should sleep on the streets instead of an abandoned home.
A rental advocate gathering information about empty homes for squatters has defended his controversial plan to help Aussies “camp out” in an abandoned property. Jordan van den Berg has copped criticism after setting up a register for Australians to dob in addresses left to rot.
The non-practising lawyer told Yahoo Finance yesterday that leaking details of empty houses to give shelter to those struggling in the housing crisis was a short-term solution while politicians nutted out a better path. But his "mic drop" moment came Monday night when he joined The Project and was asked if the squatters he assisted hooked the abandoned homes up to running water or electricity.
"So, they're basically just camping out in abandoned homes with no power?" co-host Sarah Harris asked.
"It's raining in Melbourne at the moment so I guess camping out inside is better than camping out in the bush," van den Berg said.
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'Out of touch': The Project criticised for response to housing issue
Along with Harris' shock that homeless people would choose an abandoned property over camping in a street or park, van den Berg was pressed by Waleed Aly about the legality of his proposal, while panellist Steve Price questioned if the tenant's advocate would be pleased if it were a home he owned.
The panel attracted criticism online, pointing out that "homelessness exists" and is a "big problem".
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“Watching the rich out-of-touch panel on the Project realise in real time that not everyone is rich is so bizarre," comedian John Delmenico wrote.
"Especially the part where Pingers has to explain that being in a house is safer than sleeping on the street. How do they host the news with no connection to reality?”
“She was laughing at the fact that ppl would camp out in abandoned houses with no power/water, until he put her in her place by reminding her they’re better off camping under shelter than outside. Mic drop moment," another X user wrote.
So Steve Price and I go to the same cafe and there’s 3 abandoned homes within 200m of the cafe, but apparently stevo hasn’t seen any of them
— Purplepingers (@purplepingers) April 9, 2024
"I feel like this was implied but I wish they understood your whole point was like: “yeah, my plans not perfect, but it’s something, how about the people we pay to sort this kind of shit out figure out something even better???”
Van den Berg, who has received a "mixed result of praise and death threats", didn't convince everyone.
"You're travelling down the wrong path, dangerous in fact," one said.
“He thinks he’s doing a good thing, but he’s given absolutely no critical thought to the implications of encouraging people to take over ‘empty homes’," said another.
There are 3,000 Australians who will reach out to homeless services every hour, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest homelessness report.
Affordability has become worse in almost every Australian city (Hobart and Canberra not included), while the regions are also copping huge disparities between what people are earning and what they need to fork out for rent.
Low-income families are facing “dire” situations, with those on JobSeeker needing to spend more than 75 per cent of their income on a one-bedroom apartment in any capital, according to the latest National Shelter-SGS Economics and Planning Rental Affordability Index.
“More households in our cities and our regions are in rental stress and many areas are the most unaffordable they have ever been,” National Shelter CEO Emma Greenhalgh said.
Homelessness Australia said more than half of all the people seeking their services said financial struggle - like rental affordability - was the main reason they needed help.
Defiant rental advocate refuses to back down
Van den Berg launched his campaign with a video of a house in his home state of Victoria, where he claimed a landlord increased the rent, forcing a tenant who could not cover it to leave.
He claimed instead of dropping the rent to meet the market, the house has sat abandoned.
Van den Berg, told Yahoo Finance he's trying to thwart homeowners who are letting their properties sit idly instead of allowing others to buy them, or setting rent at a reasonable amount so a tenant could move in.
The Victorian, who who runs the site 'Shit Rentals' and is known for giving a voice to Australian tenants under his moniker purplepingers, told Yahoo Finance he was being strategic about which abandoned houses he released information on to try and stop authorities or the property owners taking measures to prevent squatters from coming in.
After his appearance on the Channel 10 nightly news program, he released the details of five more locations from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Is squatting legal in Australia?
The renting advocate insisted that he wasn't encouraging people to squat in places where the locks still worked, as that would be classed as breaking and entering. But he did say squatting was not illegal.
Property lawyer Monica Rouvellas told Yahoo Finance a property has to be “empty, unused and abandoned” before a squatter can move in.
They also have to make a “reasonable” attempt to find the owner and ask if they can squat in the property before doing so.
“You still have to be careful [because] the owner does have an implied right to have the property not interfered with,” she said.
“So even if the door is unlocked, the fact that someone has entered into that property, that person is now interfering with the owner's right to occupy that land.”
Van den Berg’s campaign takes aim at properties that have been abandoned by investors who might be land banking, which is a practice where landlords allow homes to sit vacant as it increases in value.
However, Rouvellas said there are a bunch of reasons why places don’t have anyone inside, including a deceased estate, the landlord not having enough funds to renovate or the owner being overseas.
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