Tenant claims racial discrimination by housing provider

June 2021

Samuel* is an Aboriginal man. He lodged a complaint with ADNSW against his community-based social housing provider. Samuel felt that the housing service had discriminated against him when they failed to act on his complaints about residents’ racially motivated harassment and vilification of him, and when the housing service served him with an eviction notice.

At the conciliation conference, the housing service denied the allegations, and said that there had been a long-standing dispute between Samuel and his neighbour who was also one of their tenants. They explained that they had taken action against Samuel’s neighbour, but were not able to take action against the other resident as he was not their tenant.

The complaint was resolved when, without admitting any liability, the housing service agreed to provide cultural awareness training to their staff, an ex-gratia payment and rent-free period to Samuel, and repairs to a dividing fence.

*Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual.