For public housing tenant Carolyn Smith, being slugged an extra $20 a week under the state government’s ‘‘bedroom tax’’ would mean eating baked beans for dinner.
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Last week the Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward announced public housing tenants who chose to stay in homes with vacant bedrooms would be charged for the space.
Single people would be charged an extra $20 a week while couples would have to fork out an extra $30.
Ms Smith, who has lived in the same three-bedroom house in Berkeley for more than 20 years, is on a single pension and said once essentials like rent, gas, electricity and food were taken care of she was lucky to have $80 a week left over.
She said having to pay an extra $20 a week ‘‘would affect me greatly’’.
‘‘It just cuts me back again, instead of eating a baked dinner, I’d eat baked beans,’’ she said.
‘‘We don’t eat a great lot now. What you do here now is, you make up a big curry or stew and you freeze it all for yourself. So you’re living on frozen food.
‘‘You go to the supermarket, you buy marked-down fruit, we’re all doing that to survive. Anything marked down you’ve got to live off. It is hard, it’s not easy.
‘‘At home, you’ve got to sit with blankets on you because you’re not game to put the heater on. It is awful when you have to think, ‘Oh well, it’s eight o’clock now I’d better turn off the TV to save a bit of power, I’d better go to bed to keep warm’.
‘‘And it’s not just me doing that, it’s everyone.’’
She was concerned that because she had two spare bedrooms she would be forced to pay $40 a week. She added those extra bedrooms still get used regularly.
‘‘My daughter comes home and stays with me two or three days a week and the grandkids come over to stay,’’ she said.
‘‘I’ve got kids down the road that come here. I even have homeless kids that call in and see me. If they need a meal or a bed for the night, I’ll give them a bed.
‘‘This is my home, I consider this my home. I will go into one of their dog boxes when I’m ready, but I’m not ready yet.’’
Ms Smith said she had paid for a lot of maintenance to her home out of her own pocket – including painting and building a carport.
She decided to speak out on behalf of others in the same situation as herself because she didn’t like the image people have of those living in public housing.
‘‘I’m sick and tired of people putting housos down,’’ she said.
‘‘Most people who live in housing department homes, we don’t just sit around twiddling our thumbs, we get out and do volunteer work in the community.
‘‘I like doing my volunteer work. I drive the community bus for the Aboriginal community. I take the elders out round the op shops and that, and I love it. I love my little job.’’
