Letter to the Editor … My Neighbours are being evicted …

*Pic: Representative … Flickr Paul Sableman

Dear Editor,

My neighbours are being evicted.

One by one they are being driven from their homes with just two-weeks notice to find somewhere else to live

These are just ordinary people: working, retired, pensioners and families whose lives are being thrown into turmoil and desperation to find shelter. Many have been in the same place for years, paying their dues, living their lives and are part of our community.

Now they are leaving, to far flung places away from work, friends and family with the looming prospect of an icy Show Ground. Why? Because absentee landlords, lured by the glitter of Airbnb and seemingly oblivious to the human consequences are sweeping them away. While such choices are understandable, to gain maximum advantage from their investments, the human cost is devastating.

The insipidness and impotence of both government and council in allowing this to happen makes less sense. Vibrant, viable communities need a healthy mix of people to function effectively.

They need children, families, singles, older people and yes, tourists to mesh together for the benefit of all. A disproportionate representation of any one sector will surely spoliate, slowly, innocuously until the area becomes a shell, a soulless cacoon with no one walking dogs, chatting to neighbours or simply being while tourists just see each other as in many cities throughout the World. Is this really what we want?

There is a paradox here when our neighbours are tenting at condemned caravan parks or the city streets while our visitors sleep warmly in their homes. Glitter, it may be remembered, can so easily tarnish from the tears of others.

Ian Broinowski

*Dr Ian Broinowski *Dr Ian Broinowski PhD, MEd, BA(Soc Wk), BEc, Dip Teach, worked as an advanced skills teacher in children’s services at the Institute of TAFE Tasmania in Hobart, Australia for many years. Ian has a background in Economics, Social Work and Education. He has taught in a wide range of subjects in aged care, disability services, children’s services, community and youth work. He worked for a period as a house parent in Bristol, England and Northern Ireland. He has also held positions as a child welfare officer in Tasmania and NSW. Ian’s publications include Child Care Social Policy and Economics, (1994) Creative Childcare Practice: Program design in early childhood, (2002) and recently managed Children’s Services 2004. He has spent the past five years studying his PhD at the University of South Australia in which he examined the relationship between enchantment, imagination and creativity, and the quality of the work of the early childhood educator. Ian was awarded the Jean Denton national scholarship in 2001. He is currently teaching online from Hobart in Education with Open Universities Australia at Curtin University in WA and is a member of the Health and Medical Ethics Committee with the University of Tasmania. In 2013 he presented a paper at the Future of Education Conference in Florence Italy on the ‘Use of Humour in Online Teaching’. He lives in Battery Point/