On the side of Alice Underwood’s house is a list of things she wants written in chalk. “Shower. Electricity” are at the top, in bright red. “Flowers. Berries” follow.
Alice is 32 years old. For most of her life she has lived without running water, electricity or even a fridge – but not by choice.
An hour outside Melbourne, Alice lives on a block. There are two small dwellings, one for her and a friend, and another where her mother lives part-time.
Rats have eaten through the insulation in both houses. The walls contain asbestos and are cracked at the edges. There is a tank but the water is unfiltered and there is not enough pressure to run a shower. The toilet often gets clogged, so they mainly go to the bathroom up the bush.
It is camping with walls, living totally off-grid, but not by choice. Modern Australia, without the modern amenities.
“I am not confident in how to use a normal household washing machine,” Alice says. “I could probably work it out but I’ve got no reason to know these things … I simply don’t know how to change a lightbulb.”
This week Renew Australia for All, an alliance of 50 energy, welfare, faith groups and unions, called on the government to overhaul the nation’s energy system, to repower homes with solar batteries and make thermal improvements.
As part of this, welfare advocates want the government to set up loans for homeowners on low incomes who are living in dilapidated dwellings.
Alice has severe autism and access to an NDIS package, but she cannot use it to fix her home. Her sole income is the disability support pension, so she also cannot afford it.
She owns half the property with her mother, Naomi, who is 68. Naomi is on the age pension and has worked casually as a fruit picker for the past 15 years.
“No one has electricity on this ridge,” Naomi says, “but everyone else has solar or a generator.”
About 2% of Australian homes are estimated to be off-grid, according to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, though it is unclear how many are by choice. The World Bank reports access to electricity is reported at 100% in Australia, but the Underwoods know this is not correct.
So does Prof Bruce Mountain from Victoria University. He says the Underwoods’ situation is rare but not so unusual.
“There are plenty of houses that are not linked to the grid,” he says. “Because if they’re not part of the suburb or part of the housing development, and they’re quite remote, often you need to pay to connect to the nearest distribution network.
“And often that’s not worthwhile for people, even if they can afford it.”
Naomi is saving every dollar she can to fix the place up. But just restumping the main house, which is on a 20-degree lean, will cost about $13,000. Last year they had the block evaluated at $380,000, not enough to buy another home in the area big enough for them.
Twenty years ago she was quoted $20,000 to get power to the property, despite the closest pole standing just 500 metres away. This year, the electrical company AusNet said it would cost them $90,000.
Without a fridge, Alice eats noodles and tinned food. Three years ago, Mikey, a family friend, bought them a small solar generator. It lets them run some 12-volt LEDs and charge their phones. They tried to run a fridge but it overloaded the system.
Mikey estimates they need $100,000 to make the house habitable, to connect clean and hot water, seal the asbestos, get more solar and do a restump. The reality is no one here has this type of money. Alice’s glasses are missing a lens and she cannot afford a new pair.
NDIS support workers bring them bottles of drinkable water or take their clothes to the laundry. They run Alice into town so she can shower at a local church.
“If I had electricity I would make green smoothies,” Alice says. “I would probably just be addicted to electricity if I had it, so I’d have to use everything.”
In the Northern Territory, homes with no power and water are a regular part of life, says Simon Quilty, the CEO of Wilya Janta, an Aboriginal not-for-profit housing consultancy.
Many of those homes operate on prepaid power and the moment someone in a remote community cannot pay, they are in the dark, Quilty says. They are the most energy-insecure homes in the world, he says.
About 50,000 people live remotely in the NT, he says, the majority of them First Nations. In summer, many homes lose access to water – and in those that have it, the pipes can get so hot that scalding temperatures make it impossible to use, he says.
Kristin O’Connell, a welfare advocate from the Antipoverty Centre, says many of these problems could be alleviated if the government were to introduce no-interest loans to be repaid at the time of sale, a stated goal of Renew Australia for All.
“It’s Hecs for households,” she says. “People would be able to get enough money to get their house up to a standard that it needs to be at, to then take advantage of solar and battery and get that infrastructure installed.”
O’Connell says 15% of people just on jobseeker are homeowners. She knows of one woman in Hobart whose roof has fallen in and she cannot afford to fix it.
“Those folks are having their houses degrade and the government is leaving those people behind.”
‘A big strain on the finances’
In Tasmania, Janet owns a home on the east coast near Bicheno.
She has had the place for 12 years. Eight years ago, her toilet broke and she has not had the money to fix it.
“So I’ve been using a bucket,” she says. “I buy two bags of pine bark, which, as weird as it sounds, is a big strain on the finances.”
Janet, a retired cleaner on a pension, paid off a new toilet through layby seven years ago. But she does not know how much it will cost to plumb it in, so she is saving to be able to get a quote.
There are other issues. She has stuck plastic bags on kitchen windows to keep heat in over winter. The ceiling leaks and parts of the floor are rotten. She is worried the local council will deem the property derelict and she will have to move.
She has had the place evaluated but she does not want to leave her children without any inheritance. She is applying for jobs but has had no callbacks.
“They just don’t even answer. It’s probably my age, and not that I’d tell them, but I’ve got … spondylitis, arthritis. But I just need that extra money. And how do you get it?”
She says an interest-free loan would be “perfect”.
“I think a lot of people are in the same boat.”
