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Placemaking Case Studies

Bushland Estate, Taree NSW

Bushland Estate, Taree NSW

At a glance

• Landlord: Home in Place, CHL, Aboriginal Housing Office. There are also a small amount of private rentals and owner occupiers

• Location type: regional estate

• Resident profile: 37% of households have a weekly household income of less than $650, 53% of residents are not in the labour force, 46% of residents at the Bushland Estate are Aboriginal, and the median age is 24.

• Estate type and size: 123 properties in total, with 111 of these being social housing.  Home in Place manage around 50, the Aboriginal Housing Office manage 40 and 12 are managed by CHL.  In addition, Home in Place manage around 300 properties in the surrounding 3 km. area. Properties on the estate are all houses, mainly 3 or 4 bedrooms.  Most properties are brick veneer, with some fibro.

Background

When Home in Place (HiP), working closely with CHL and the Aboriginal Housing Office, started their post-Social Housing Management Transfer and post-Covid engagement work, there were concerns that the Bushland estate could have reached a tipping point where the estate was no longer sustainable. 

These concerns included anti-social behaviour and fire starting. 

The estate is relatively isolated and is located three kilometres from the nearest community facility and four kilometres out of Taree town centre. 

There was an existing Bushland Estate Action Team (BEAT) which had been established jointly with the Police, community housing providers and local real estate agents. 

In mid 2022 the CHPs and AHO wanted to understand what the issues and priorities were from the community’s perspective so that they could plan a detailed community engagement plan.  The most effective way to do that was to go out and door knock at every home, including the few privately rented and owned properties on the estate.  They asked each resident three simple questions – what are the top three things you like about living here, what are the three top issues affecting the community and what three things would make this community a better place to live. 

The strong sense of community was the main thing that residents liked.  Challenges included motorbikes riding around the area, a lack of community facilities, a lack of things for young people to do and rubbish.

The CHPs and the AHO saw the need for close and long-term involvement with the community, based on their priorities.  The engagement included:

• Feeding back the information that the residents had told them through a Bushland Estate newsletter.

• Taking action on the things that residents had identified, including a massive estate clean up with excellent involvement from the community and support from local Council. Local youth supported elder to prepare for the estate clean up and helped out as part of the community effort.

• Starting a monthly breakfast club on the estate so that kids could go to school with a hot breakfast and with sandwiches made for lunch. The breakfast club has been a great success with between 50 and 80 community members taking part. This has been a focus for positive relationships and building trust in the services. The service providers that attend have a ‘no shop talk’ rule for the events to encourage people to come. Regular services include HiP, Police, CatholicCare, Community Corrections, Service NSW and many more.

• Building confidence of the community and pushing back on some of the previous negative comments about the estate.

• General service improvement including building relationships with Council waste services, roads and infrastructure.

• Taking urgent preventative action by boarding up any vacant properties immediately.  Since the transfer there has been a noticeable decline in fires on the estate. 

Next steps under consideration

HiP are considering how they can introduce a new community hub on the estate, following the successful models they have introduced at Broken Hill and at Tumbi Umbi on the NSW Central Coast.  This would provide a valuable community resource and help HiP increase their local presence on the estate.

The Tenant Reference Group meets quarterly and includes two tenants from Bushland. Members have the opportunity to escalate issues to the HiP-wide ‘Our Voice’ Panel. 

HiP are planning additional work on their outcomes framework so that additional objective measurement can occur.

• Starting from the community’s priorities.

• ‘Soft entry’ to build trust and two way respect.

• Following through quickly wherever feasible.

• Close multi-agency working, including with another CHP, the AHO, Council, the Police and Corrections.

• Consistent and long-term engagement is essential.

This section includes information about the local area from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, including Quick Stats for the Statistical Area 1 (SA1) and the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas. SEIFA provides measures of socio-economic conditions by geographic area. 

Statistical Area 1 Code: (click link for more information) 10805116917

Usual resident population374
SEIFA Score585
SEIFA Rank49
SEIFA Decile1
SEIFA Quintile1
SEIFA Percentile1
* Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2021 data

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This project was made possible by funds provided by the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) under the NSW Community Housing Industry Development Strategy (IDS). The NSW Community Housing IDS is a partnership between CHIA NSW and DCJ.