Eureka Villages increase rents on aged and disability pensioners, despite regulator finding them to be ‘unreasonable’

Julie has lived in a seniors village in Hobart for almost a year, but when the rent went up by $50 a week, she could no longer afford it. It was just out of the question for me on an age pension. It left her with $300.00 a fortnight for living expenses, so she’s moving into social housing but fears others in the complex don’t have that option. A lot of people are on expensive medications as well, and that’s got to be found out of what’s left of your pension. When informing residents of the rent rise, Eureka Villages highlights its fresh and nutritious home style meals prepared by a village chef. On other services, but Bronwyn says the food is very basic and isn’t improving in line with the rent. To me, if I’m going to pay that amount of money, I’ve got to have really good food, and it’s not. She was among a 24 Eureka residents across Tasmania to complain to the Residential tenancy commissioner. So far, every complaint has been upheld. With the rent rise deemed unreasonable. The increase was reduced by $30. A couple of people said to me, oh, that’s ridiculous, that won’t work. Oh, they reckon they’ll get the rent down for us. Well, we’ve proved that we can. But only those residents who felt comfortable to complain will get the lower rent increase, even though the commissioner found it was unreasonable. Eureka will continue with the $50 a week increase for almost everyone else. And it’s not just the Eureka villages in Tasmania that are copying increasing rents, it’s happened in Broken Hill as well. It allows institutions like Eureka to actually charge a significant amount of money with very little chance that people have the ability to move out. In a statement, Eureka says it believes as villages represent exceptional value for its residents and it has seen substantial increases in operating expenses. The company says it doesn’t apply one-size-fits-all rent rises across Australia.