Public housing tenants who don't pay rent or respect their home and neighbours within the first six months of their lease could face immediate eviction following the successful trial of a probationary tenancy program in Fremantle.
The 'P-plate renters' trial was offered to new tenants entering the public housing system through the Housing Authority's Fremantle office earlier this year.
Former Housing Minister-turned-Parliamentary Secretary, Colin Holt told Radio 6PR on Friday the trial gave tenants a fixed six month lease, rather than a permanent periodical lease.
"If you prove yourself to be a good neighbour, pay your rent and look after your home [within that six months], you get to stay and you go onto a normal periodical tenancy," he said.
Mr Holt said the probationary period allowed the Housing Authority to evict a disruptive tenant by giving notice at the end of the lease.
Under the current public housing lease agreements, the state government is required to take troublesome tenants to court to have them evicted.
The process is often lengthy and not always successful.
"It takes way too long to get them out if they were misbehaving or doing the wrong thing," Mr Holt said.
"And takes a lot of resources away from the Housing Authority... and you've got to go in and potentially repair damage to houses.
"If we only give them a six month tenancy, if they can't change their behaviour in that six months, it seems like we've saved a whole heap of trouble in the first place."
Mr Holt said the trial, which led to 125 out of 179 tenants transitioning to a permanent lease, had been so successful, he wanted it rolled out across the state.
But Tenancy WA spokeswoman Kate Davis warned Radio 6PR that evicting troublesome tenants did not remove the underlying social issues that needed to be addressed.
"Public housing is a last resort, so if you're evicted from public housing, you're being evicted to homelessness," she said.
"I think the challenge for the Housing Authority is they don't have all the answers for those underlying social problems and they certainly don't have the resources to address them.
"Quite significant social problems are much better addressed with practical solutions rather than evicting people to homelessness, because people don't evaporate when they're evicted.
"It's much easier to help someone to address these issues if they've got safe housing than if they're trying to live in their car or on the streets."
Mr Holt acknowledged the 13 per cent of tenancies signed under the six-month 'P-plate' leases that were not renewed represented a high number of people seeking public housing, but he believed that reinforced the trial policy.
"If they were on periodical permanent tenancies, that 13 per cent that the Housing Authority has to work with into the future to change behaviour or go through the whole process, go through the Magistrates Court to get them terminated," he said.
"There's a large number of people on the waiting list who would die for that kind of opportunity, so we [want to] work with people who want to pursue the opportunity.
"We want to work with people who want to change their behaviour and make themselves into good tenants, we're more than happy to give them as much help as we can."
Mr Holt said there was around 2000 people on the priority wait list for public housing and another 18,000 on the non-priority list.
One talkback caller to Radio 6PR, Sam from St James, said in his time as a community safety representative for his local council he had seen countless residents threatened or driven away from the area over bad public housing neighbours.
"It really, really gets to you to see people have nervous breakdowns over a stupid government who can't control out-of-control tenants that are privileged to live in tax-payer funded houses," he said.
"[I've witnessed] ten houses be sold... threats of having their houses burnt down...bricks on the roof...petrol bombs."
Another caller, Amanda, who is a public housing tenant, said it took the Housing Authority three years to evict her fellow-public housing neighbour who was constantly breaking into her home and damaged her car.
"I think the six month probation is a great idea," she said.
Norma from Beldon echoed a similar sentiment, telling Radio 6PR she was forced to sell her home in the suburb due to a disruptive neighbour.
"My husband and I had a beautiful home in Beldon which I had fully renovated and finished and Homeswest bought the property next door," she said.
"The neighbours were horrific, and any complaint we had... was just washed aside.
"The people that bought [the house] after us have sold, the people next door to our house sold, the people on the other side of them sold, all because of these people."
A final decision on probationary tenancies is expected within months.
