AN AMPUTEE nun is one of 16 shocked elderly council housing residents being evicted in a cost-cutting move.
By June 2013 Bayside Council will close down 18 independent living units in Sandringham and Beaumaris.
The council said it could not afford “the major investment required” to maintain the units.
But one of the residents, Sister Patrice Timoney, said she believed the eviction was a cash grab for valuable land, and there was nothing wrong with their homes.
She has lived at the Sandringham Rd complex for 18 months, but other neighbours, who were too distraught to speak publicly, have been there for decades.
The council said it could not afford “the major investment required” to maintain the units.
But one of the residents, Sister Patrice Timoney, said she believed the eviction was a cash grab for valuable land, and there was nothing wrong with their homes.
She has lived at the Sandringham Rd complex for 18 months, but other neighbours, who were too distraught to speak publicly, have been there for decades.
“This is a stressful, awful thing to do to us and I am angry and upset,” Sister Timoney said.
“It is pure greed to just sell us out - we have everything we could want here and it is beyond belief they would kick us out of our homes to make money.”
Sister Timoney said new affordable accommodation in the area would be near impossible to find as demand was so high.
She said moving out of the area would make it difficult to continue her counselling work that had helped the needy for 40 years.
Mayor Alex del Porto said the council had “not made the decision lightly”. He said there were no plans for the future use of the buildings and that the council would help relocate residents.
“Council’s priority is to work closely with each tenant to understand individual housing needs and preferences, and to ensure the relocation process is as smooth as possible,” Cr del Porto said.
“Other organisations are better equipped to manage residential housing for older people and council does not have the same expertise or capacity to fulfil this role.”
Cr del Porto said the units’ upkeep could no longer come from the council’s “very modest” capital works budget.
Bayside Council chief executive Adrian Robb said it had been a hard decision, but necessary due to infrastructure underfunding and service rationalisation.
Mr Robb said the units were never meant to provide aged care and this was not a service other councils provided.
He said the 18 units’ rising maintenance costs - this year it was $145,000 - was too much of a burden.
“It is rental accommodation, not an aged care service,” Mr Robb said. “They were built by council on council land in the 1970s and we are seeing the maintenance costs go up and up - now is the time to make a decision.
“As landlords, we are responsible for wear-and-tear, as properties get older, they are going to cost more and more.”
Mr Robb said Bayside spent a lot of money on aged and disability services.
He said it would “guarantee to find new opportunities” for the 16 residents at the units.
“We can guarantee we will find them opportunities, (but) we can’t guarantee residents will accept them,” Mr Robb said.
He stressed the residents had been given about 20 months’ lead time to find a new place, with the council doing all it could to help.
He said the council spent about 9 per cent of its budget on aged and disability services such as meals-on-wheels and in-home support. “We are actually strengthening our involvement in aged care, we spend $8 million a year,” he said.
“There are 162 staff are involved with 140,000 hours of service and 60,000 meals serving 3000 clients.”
He said the council provided a variety of services to all sectors of the community and had to try to use their resources as best they could.
“I reckon council is doing a good but difficult job, exercising priorities for council dollars to be spent.”
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