‘LIFE-THREATENING’ SITUATION: ABORIGINAL WOMAN’S BATTLE FOR HOUSING IN HEDLAND

BY GERARD MAZZA

Mary Narrier in South Hedland. Credit: Gerard Mazza

A gravely ill Aboriginal woman who has been on the social housing waitlist in the Pilbara town of South Hedland for almost a year fears her life is at risk because she is homeless.

Mary Narrier, 56, who suffers from debilitating emphysema, has been forced to stay with family members and move between houses in the Pilbara since moving to the region in April 2022.

She first applied for the housing waitlist in June 2022.

When Ngaarda Media visited Ms Narrier last month, she was staying with her son and his two children in a three-bedroom house in South Hedland. Since then, Ms Narrier has left that property and travelled to the town of Karratha, where another relative has allowed her to stay.

Ms Narrier grew up in various foster homes throughout Western Australia and had a traumatic early life. Between 2016 and 2022, she lived happily with a partner in Tasmania. After her partner passed away, Ms Narrier decided to move to South Hedland, where her two sons and nine grandchildren lived.

Ms Narrier told Ngaarda Media that returning to WA was her “biggest mistake”, and that she’d lost her self-esteem since making the move.

“I’m frustrated; I’m annoyed,” she said. “I suffer bad with my mental health.”

According to Ms Narrier, earlier this year a Department of Communities staff member told her she would be more likely to secure a home if a medical specialist wrote a letter explaining she needed her own house for the sake of her health. 

When Ms Narrier went to see a lung specialist to ask for a letter in March, she was so ill the doctor immediately admitted her to hospital.

Ms Narrier was told by the specialist she needed to stop smoking to treat her emphysema with home oxygen.

“The doctors said, if I don’t give up smoking, I could be gone within the next few months,” she said.

“That’s the biggest struggle for me. You live around people who smoke. Being homeless is stressful, so you can’t give up the smoking.”

She said she is confident she could quit if she had her own home and did not have to live with other smokers around her.

The specialist wrote a letter, seen by Ngaarda Media, that was addressed to the housing authority and said Ms Narrier’s health would benefit if she could move into her own home.

Ms Narrier said she gave the letter to the Department of Communities South Hedland Housing Office, and a staff member told her it had secured her a spot at the top of the waitlist.

Not long afterwards, a different Housing Office staff member came to visit Ms Narrier at her son’s house where she was staying. According to Ms Narrier, the staff member told her there were now 15 people ahead of her on the waitlist and asked, “How is a house going to improve your quality of life?”

“I thought, ‘Are you for real? Are you honestly for real?’” Ms Narrier said.

Ms Narrier said she’d experienced a lack of compassion from staff at the South Hedland Housing Office, who had given her conflicting information, failed to communicate clearly and caused her to despair.

“I get treated like crap,” she said.

“I just can’t live like this. I hate it. Like I said to them, ‘You’re not going to have to accommodate me if you don’t accommodate me, because I’ll be buried.’”

Well-known housing advocate Dr Betsy Buchanan OAM, who has supported Ms Narrier in her search for a home, said the South Hedland Housing Office should be investigated for discrimination.

“There seems to be an entrenched culture there that they don’t house First Nations people,” she said.

“Considering the amount of wealth that comes out of [Port Hedland], I’m absolutely shocked that they treat the First Nations people the way they do.

“They are just so used to refusing Aboriginal people, they’ve got a set formula. They say, ‘We don’t have the houses’, or ‘If we do have the houses and you’re on priority, you’ll be waiting three years.’

“No consideration is given to the fact that the life expectancy of First Nations people is so poor.

“Whatever forces in that area there are, they are definitely life-threatening in terms of housing and First Nations health.”

A Department of Communities spokesperson said the department does not tolerate racism and is the second largest employer of Aboriginal staff in WA’s public sector.

They said it is not mandatory for tenants to indicate whether they identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and that the department was a significant provider of housing to Indigenous people across the state, particularly in regional and remote areas.

Ms Narrier said she knew of many social housing properties in South Hedland that were unoccupied or abandoned, and one property that would be suitable for her needs had been sitting empty for more than 12 months.

The Department of Communities spokesperson told Ngaarda Media that as of March 31, 2023, there were 719 public housing dwellings managed by the South Hedland Housing Office and 355 public housing waitlist applications for the South Hedland area, representing 690 people who are waiting for housing.

Ngaarda Media asked the department how many social housing properties were currently vacant, but did not receive a direct answer.

“Vacancy numbers are always a single point in time number that fluctuates for a range of reasons,” the spokesperson said.

“Properties may be awaiting acceptance of offers from applicants, undergoing minor maintenance repairs or refurbishment prior to new occupants moving in, or undergoing major refurbishment as part of a redevelopment.”