12:00a.m. 20th July 2008

| By Bill Hoffman

The department of housing ignored doctors’ reports that a woman’s physical and mental health was deteriorating because of the poor state of her state-owned accommodation.

The 47-year-old mother-of-three and grandmother-of-five is at the centre of a furore over appalling Sunshine Coast public housing.

Documents seen by Sunshine Coast Sunday reveal that her doctor was deeply concerned about the impact of the damp, mouldy living conditions on the chronic asthmatic.

The woman has taken the Queensland Department of Housing and the Public Trustee to the small claims tribunal to seek redress for her situation.

Her psychologist, doctor and Mission Australia case worker describe as “unhygenic”, “unsanitary and unsafe”, “substandard” and the reason for her suffering “repeated chest infections”.

The state government bought the Woombye Gardens Caravan Park 10 months ago in a bid to help accommodate those at the sharp end of the region’s mounting housing affordability crisis.

Photo Gallery: Caravan housing disgrace

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The woman was moved into her leaky, vermin-chewed van on February 28. She lives on a $270 New Start allowance, $120 of which goes in rent.

Reports signed by the woman’s psychologist, doctor and Mission Australia case worker that attest to the state of her accommodation and its affects on her physical and mental well-being were provided in a closed court hearing in Nambour this week.

They had previously been given to department of housing officers.

Dr Dot Dowd of the Ann Street Family Medicine in Nambour said in a report that the various leaks, and the damp and mouldy nature of the caravan made it unsuitable for the health of the chronic asthmatic.

The report said for her health’s sake the woman needed to be shifted to better quality accommodation.

In another report, psychologist and Queensland Health clinician Donna Eshuys says the woman was under extreme distress as a consequence of her attempts to re-negotiate suitable accommodation through the department of housing.

Ms Eshuys wrote that the unhygenic van in which the woman was living appeared to have negatively impacted on both her mental and physical health over the past 12 months.

A Mission Australia Personal Support Program assessment found that the woman was “living in unsanitary and unsafe accommodation that was impacting on her health which had deteriorated due to the fact of living in substandard conditions”.