SouthEast
Housing Co-operative
The
Frankston, Oakleigh and Ringwood/Croydon Rental Housing Co-operatives merged on
Rules of the co-operative.
The merger was motivated by two main
factors:
1.A
need for a more
professional, cost-efficient and accountable organisation capable of
surviving into the future, while securing housing for current and future
members, and expanding the number of properties under its
management.
2.
The
State Government’s decision to re-structure the community-housing sector, driven
by the need for greater cost efficiency and
accountability.
The
merger of the co-operatives followed two years of difficult negotiations, and
hard work by members and staff. Negotiations took place on two levels – between
the participating co-operative’s membership and with the
DHS.
The
difficulty of merging three distinct co-operatives, each with cultures built up
over 17 years, was problematic at times and will continue to be a challenge for
the new board and staff members.
However,
negotiations with the DHS proved more complex. The first major hurdle was
convincing the DHS, under the previous government, that a co-operative structure
was preferable to a public company and that sufficient accountability mechanisms
had been built into the legislation to accommodate their
requirements.
Further
obstacles were encountered when moves were made to terminate current head leases
held by Rental Housing Co-operatives. An arbitration process initiated by the
United Housing Coalition resulted in the DHS accepting that the perpetual lease
could not be terminated. SouthEast’s solicitor then
had to sort out the complexities of a merger involving three separate head
leases.
THREE
YEARS ON……
Having
survived the first three years of the merger, we believe we have weathered the
storm. We have consolidated our
assets and set up a very good governance and management structure. We have also
largely managed to merge three distinct cultures and policy and procedure
documents – no mean feat we assure you and not without a number of headaches.
We
are now well placed to meet the challenges of governmental changes, including
increased compliance requirements and financial pressure; and any attempts to
undermine member control of SEHC.
Through good governance and management practices we have earned the
respect of the DHS and are one of the largest long term community housing
providers in
The
value of good governance for Board members cannot be underestimated and has been
a high priority in our formative years.
We initiated Governance training for our own Board of Directors and then
the DHS
proceeded to copy the model and offer it to other
Co-ops.
A
further issue worth promoting was that the DHS approached us to assist another
rental housing co-operative that was experiencing some problems with financial
management. We responded to this in
the true co-operative spirit and assisted in averting what could have been fatal
for the Co-op concerned. This
we believe has strengthened the Co-op sector in this state and is proof that the
Co-op spirit is alive and well..
We
are confident that we can meet the challenges that we may face in the
future.
SouthEast
Housing Co-operative is here to stay and believes it is ideally situated to
promote the cause of tenant-managed rental housing co-operatives and secure the
housing rights of its members into the future.
Contact:
Peter
Sibly (Manager)
Or
Shirley Faram (Chairperson)
Phone: 9706 8005
Last
updated:
17-Oct-2003 12:32 PM