The scums behind the slums

OK, if they didn't smoke maybe they could afford better accommodation, but these poor souls are just being taken advantage of.

The more we advance the more we leave others behind

This report in The Sunday Age  about how four Melbourne businessmen scumbag criminals are exploiting the most vulnerable in our society sickens me. If you haven’t read it I strongly suggest you do.

It might make you feel sorry or it might make you feel angry. Hopefully though, it will also make you feel something needs to be done about these arseholes, John Pisani, George Maatouk, Arthur “Arty” Oshan and Joe Tomarchio.

Pisani and his co-shitheads are making a fortune out of the misery of others by leasing cheap, low-end properties and then renting rooms out to those poor sods unable to get better accommodation. Typically their ‘tenants’ have no money for a bond, no references or are unemployed or on benefits. Many are mentally ill. The rent is deducted from their benefit allowances and/or forced out of them in cash:

Pisani and his three partners — all convicted criminals, three of them for sexual offences — are pocketing about $100,000 profit a week by controlling Melbourne’s private rooming house market, a shadowy world where some of society’s most vulnerable members are forced to pay exorbitant prices, often in cash, for squalid accommodation or face life on the streets.

The four — Pisani, George Maatouk, Arthur “Arty” Oshan and Joe Tomarchio — control at least 220 homes across the city from Frankston to St Albans via a long list of companies, most of which are not registered in their names.

Many of the properties are little more than slums, with toilets that don’t work, cockroach infestations and bathrooms and kitchens shared by up to 12 people. It is believed that many premises operated by the men may be in breach of government residential, health and building regulations, especially in regard to fire safety.

In some cases, The Sunday Age has been told, tenants have been threatened with violence for complaining about the poor standard of accommodation, which typically costs $175 a week for a single room, $250 for a room with a double bed, and $30 a week extra per child.

Northern Suburbs Accommodation and the Victorian Accommodation Centre are the two biggest companies that they control. According to one of Pisani’s former employees the four “don’t give a damn what happens in their houses as long as they’re getting their cash and they expect to have $500 a week profit from each property.”

Shit, $500 per week profit from each property – AFTER paying the head lease and any other costs – that’s more return than you’d get if you owned it and presented it in good condition, as (fortunately) some people do.

I have a relative who, due to his condition and circumstances, lives in a similar property in an inner-Melbourne suburb. However, the landlord in his case is at least decent enough to provide rooms that are of a good size and condition. Importantly they’re fully self-contained with cooking facilities and their own bathroom, which allows the tenant some dignity. The tenants are quite safe and secure provided they keep their doors locked. But the rent he pays (which is also deducted from his disability pension) is a far more reasonable $150 per week. Bear in mind that my relative does not have to pay for services such as gas & electricity, which are included in the rent. Nor did he have to pay a bond. The room came furnished. Well, reasonably furnished.

My question is this. If the landlord of my relative’s property can provide the less fortunate in our society with reasonably good accommodation at a reasonable rent and still make a reasonable profit, then why are there not more ethical investors in this market? It sounds like a potentially good business prospect.

To answer my own question, I guess the reason many investors steer away from this lower-end market is they are concerned with issues like maintenance and resale value. And that’s what leaves these poor people at the mercy of scum like Pasini & co.

I think the Federal Government needs to take a look at this and perhaps provide some taxation incentives for investors willing to provide decent accommodation for those people who might otherwise be homeless. And the State Government needs to legislate separately to control these boarding houses. Just passing the responsibility off to local councils and VCAT is not good enough and what’s needed is to bring them under direct control of a body that can vet and police the operators (at will).

With Melbourne’s population booming and the housing shortage growing every year, conditions are ripe for the Pasinis et al of this world to flourish and cause even more misery by making obscene profits that are ridiculously out of whack to what they are providing. Ironically the Age’s article (which is excellent and a real eye-opener) may encourage more sleazebags to get into the same ‘racket’.

This is an urgent problem that should be acted on immediately.

As for John Pisani, George Maatouk, Arthur “Arty” Oshan and Joe Tomarchio, well, words fail me to describe the amount of contempt I hold them in.

It almost makes you wish Carl Williams was NOT in jail.