Saturday night at Carrical witnessed the longest Community Dinner of ALL Time! These auspicious occasions usually commence at 5.45pm and finish no later than 8.30pm. Last night we decided to pull up stumps at 10.30pm. Expect great things to occur as a result of this Dinner!
Category Archives: Carrical
Death
There was a death at Carrical this evening. Dennis Donovan, 71, died onsite at about 8.00pm having collapsed, presumably with a massive heart attack, at about 6.45pm. Paramedics worked so hard to revive Dennis (having replaced Amanda and residents when they turned up) but eventually had to accept the inevitable. Dennis had been at Carrical for at least 16 years – he was there as I started in 1998. A very gentle man who said very little but was greatly respected Dennis will be greatly missed. So very sad to see one more of the real old timers at Carrical pass away. It is some consolation that he died in his home and that he was surrounded by folks whom I think Dennis called his family.
General Lease and Dept
On Friday Amanda and I met with Jo Holl from DHS Leasing to commence talks re Servants and the General Lease. It was a particularly beneficial meeting as we were able to express our specific concerns in regards to the General Lease, update the Dept in terms of our progress to date (having a full condition report completed/talking with St Kilda Community Housing and Yarra Community Housing re maintenance options) discuss the future of our CCB funds as well as arrangements for our ongoing presence at Hamer post the culmination of the current lease on 30/6/15.
A meeting of the Servants Risk Committee will be held in early March to progress thinking/actions in regards to the General Lease.
Hostile and mud sticks
Last Friday I met with a teacher at Carey who expressed concern with the fact that 2 of her students are going to be involved in our new book project. The upshot of this conversation was that I satisfied her questions and she will be visiting Carrical in the very near future to have a look for herself. I write this to let you all know that although we are more often than not met with generosity and open mindedness we are still, in many ways fighting an uphill battle. The teacher concerned was an ex-cop and had prejudices against rooming houses, the mentally ill and those without jobs in spades. Indeed, if the aforementioned were Olympic disciplines she would have won a swag of gold. Appreciating fully that she does of course have a duty of care to her students her manner and questioning of me/Servants was appalling – not to mention ignorant. Originally I was not intending to Pulse this story – however, Warren, quite rightly I believe, encouraged me to do so. I am happy to talk with individuals about this meeting if so desired. In general life is pretty tough for those we house – made all the more difficult when community opinion is as dreadful as I encountered recently. The positive? This makes me still more determined to represent well and care for those housed by Servants and also that I feel Servants can questioned/challenged and we do have terrific answers and anecdotal stories to respond with.
Somehow this reminds me of one of my all time fave quotes. The legendary John Wayne once said ‘Life’s pretty tough ……………….. it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.’
LV/Boroondara Council
Servants had a stunning night on Tuesday hosting Leadership Victoria at Carrical with the 15 team leaders from Boroondara Council they are currently taking thru a leadership program. In many ways it was a moving evening and, if nothing else, there are now considerably more people working for Council who know about our work. One resident spoke to the group about parts of his life journey and, in particular, his housing journey of late. A great night.
Carrical welcomes Phil
I Pulsed last week that Bart Majoor left Carrical – he was replaced today by Phil. Phil has been at Ozanam House in North Melbourne for many months awaiting a vacancy at Carrical. Hopefully he will make the very best of this opportunity. Amongst other things Phil is a Big Issue seller.
Ozanam House continue to be a wonderful connection for us in terms of finding resos; this relationship was established during our early days in Canterbury.
Bart
Bart Majoor, brother of Conrad and reasonably long-term Canterbury and Carrical reso moved out on Tuesday of this week. His intended replacement made a last minute decision not to move in. A new reso replaces Bart next Monday. A rarity occurs here with several empty room nights being accumulated.
Property Condition Report
As we approach the signing (or otherwise) of the General Lease for the next 5 years at Carrical from 1st July 2014 I can report that we have hired the services of Steve Skurnik to undertake a full condition report of Carrical.
This report will be ready for viewing and consideration by the committee at the upcoming 10th February committee meeting.
Steve Skurnik is the architect involved in the Romana renovations.
Vacancy!!
Shock and horror! We have a vacancy about to occur. A resident is leaving Carrical to move into a transitional housing opportunity. Hopefully this will be a good move for him. We would be more than happy to house him again in the future if the need arose. The next resident to move in has been waiting since May 2013 to be housed by us.
General Lease
There is some good progress to report in regards to Servants outsourcing the majority of our maintenance requirements in order to be prepared to sign the new General Lease in time for 1st July.
Amanda and I met with Yarra Community Housing prior to Christmas and today with t2m, the maintenance arm of St Kilda Community Housing. Both groups are more than well equipped to deal with our maintenance needs.
We aim to bring a proposal to committee at the 10th February committee meeting.
Flowers
Servants received many wonderful gifts over the Christmas period. One of the best were bunches of magnifique flowers. Now, don’t even think about asking me what they were as I have not the slightest idea, but they are beautiful and have made a fantastic contribution to helping Carrical look and smell amazing. I suggest we keep all of our houses in fresh flowers 100% of the time. If anyone would like to suggest how we might fund such a venture please let me know!
CHFOV update on the Standard Lease 6th Dec 2013
CHFOV held a workshop on Friday with speakers from various groups that have adopted the general lease.
All of them have adopted the lease and believe they are better off on it. They also talked about the problem and opportunity areas:
- the elephant in the room – UNFUNDED PROPERTY LIABILITIES.
- Insurance for the property – the department currently “self-insures”.
- Grey areas about total loss and the definition of uninhabitable.
- Less regulatory reporting – e.g. CCB reporting disappears, some reporting move to 6 monthly as well.
- Maintenance backlog when we take it on.
- structural assessments needed.
We will need to convince the regulator that we can complete the required asset management. This is not trivial.