Council Approves Measure for Social Housing

It is great to see that Knox City Council has adopted a new measure to calculate the city’s social housing needs.

There is a massive short falling for housing in the community with a waiting list for social housing at about 10 years for some people. It is disappointing at times to hear members of the community calling for social housing to be removed and that they don’t need it in their area. Quite common is that they have social housing on their street and they don’t even know it, it is after all just normal housing with normal members of the community living there. There are two ministry housings on my street alone.

We do need to look at how we can provide more social housing for the less fortunate in our community, and quiet commonly the main residents of social housing are our elderly, physical and mentally disabled, young people and single parents who each day have to fight and worry about where they will be staying the night, or how long they will be staying in their current location. Let us not also forget those who are forced to live on the streets as they have no-where were they can go, they do deserve the dignity of having a roof over their head and to get back onto their feet with support.

To show how important social housing is I have had the opportunity to tour the Women’s Social Housing project that is in Bayswater. For every one resident that got a room there was 10 more on the waiting list, the women and mothers who got a unit there were in tears of joy for finally having a place to live.

Anthony Osborne

www.anthonyosborne.com

Rowville Rocked by Power Outage

Last Sunday (29^th of Jan) at 4pm the power went out in parts of Rowville and surrounding suburbs for several hours till 8pm. The power outage hit at one of the hottest parts of the day, several residents were treated by paramedics for heat exhaustion.

It is believed that the power outage was due to a transformer fire that occurred in Upwey at the same time.

More details available at the Herald Sun: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/residents-ordered-to-stay-indoors-as-substation-burns-in-upwey/story-fn7x8me2-1226256609114

Anthony Osborne

www.anthonyosborne.com

The Basin Music Festival

Every March the peaceful quite suburb of The Basin at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges gets disrupted by the by the loud noise and bright lights of The Basin Music Festival.

The Basin Community Festival runs for three days over March in The Basin Triangle and surrounding shops attracting many visitors to the live music and community stalls, heading into its 7^th year the festival has been moved back a week from its usual time due to St Patricks Day so now the festival will be from the 23^rd to the 25^th of March.

Across 7 venues festival goers will be treated to many different styles of music that are found in the local region from Folk music to Rock, Blues to Jazz , and even Death Metal Mongolian Throat Singers as John Mortimore President of The Basin Music Festival association would say to describe the range of music that the festival offers.

Another major component of the music festival has been the Big Break Youth Stage which has offered young musicians an amazing opportunity to perform in a fun professional environment as they start their way into the music world, the youth stage is run with an opt-in competition with past winners going onto performing in a variety of music concerts around Victoria. The Big Break Youth Stage has been moved to its own weekend in July (21^st to 23^rd July) to better benefit young musicians.

The festival is the largest community music festival on the east side of Melbourne, been supported by the local Council (Knox City Council), community groups and local businesses The Basin Music Festival is a music event you can’t miss! Especially with half the stages been free to enter and enjoy, but we would like a donation to help pay for it all!

If you would like any more information about the festival check out http://www.thebasinmusic.org.au/

Anthony Osborne

Youth Coordinator

The Basin Music Festival

www.anthonyosborne.com

Rowville CFA to move

The Rowville CFA Station has recently purchased the block of land on the corner of Wellington Road and Le John Street for their new fire station – right next to their original site which was used as a storage shed for Council, which is now in the process of been sold off.

The land purchased by the CFA will be transferred in February 2012 with the station expected to be completed by 2016.

It is unknown yet of what will happen with the current site of the Rowville fire brigade.

Merry Christmas Rowville and Lysterfield

Merry Christmas to everyone in Rowville, Lysterfield and Knox!
I hope you all enjoy today and relax with your family and friends, I will be going with my family to the Rowville Baptist Church for lunch.

After the recent communication from Cr Pearce councillor for Taylor Ward I will be launching my own personal blog where I can express my opinion on issues, my first post will be a short piece on Social Housing and it's importance to the community and breaking negative stereotypes. This will be started in the New Year.
You can find my personal blog at: http://anthonyosborne.blogspot.com/

Youth Advocacy Group on Housing

After recent events in both Rowville and Boronia over medium-density development the Youth Advocacy Group has started going out to the Young People of Knox and abroad to gather their opinions on the issue.

Already the response is highlighting that young people are looking to have their future housing needs meet, with some calling for medium-density development around train station. They are also asking for social housing to be included in future housing plans.

For young people (12-15) interested in filling the survey out:

Name:
Location:
Age:
What is your current housing situation?
Are you hoping/planning to live in your municipality/suburb in the future?
What sorts of things are important to you in meeting your housing needs?
• Type of dwelling (house, unit, apartment, other)
• Location of dwelling (proximity to services, public transport, education, work, recreation opportunities, family and friends etc)
• Size of dwelling
• Type of tenure (home purchase/private or social rental/share households)
• Price (purchase, mortgage/rental)
• Availability of private rental properties
Do you think that there will be housing in your municipality/suburb that will meet your future needs?
• What are the factors that may enable you to live in municipality/suburb in the future?
• What are the barriers that may prevent you from living in municipality/suburb in the future?
How much rent or mortgage can/could you afford (fortnightly)?
• Are you aware of any housing in municipality/suburb within your budget?
Do you have any suggestions about what could be done to make it easier for you to access housing that will meet your future needs?

Responses can be posted here or emailed to me at Anthony.osborne@hotmail.com.au

Rowville in a week!

A lot has happened in Rowville in the past few weeks, so I thought I would briefly mention them as I missed the first hand opportunity due to commitments elsewhere keeping me preoccupied.

First we have the explosion of the double-B fuel tanker at the Safeway Petrol Station on Stud Road next to the Stamford Hotel on Saturday the 10^th. No-one was killed in the accident; the truck driver was taken to the Alfred Hospital where he is in a stable condition. I first heard of this accident on Facebook from my friend Cj who was at the Sports Bar at the time of the incident who got out in okay condition.

Secondly we have the crash on the Monash freeway between Ferntree Gully Road and Springvale Road which caused the closure of the Monash freeway for most of the day. Chaos ensured as cars were diverted onto Wellington Road and Ferntree Gully Road causing delays in work time commuters. Brian Negus of the RACV said that it was a sign that the East-West freeway was needed to prevent the city grinding to a halt from a freeway closure. Public Transport advocates highlighted the need for improved Public Transport like Rowville Rail which would reduce the amount of cars on the freeway by a lane (approx. 30,000 cars. Source: Rowville Rail Pre-feasibility study).