Renters’ advocate poses in front of vacant home implying it could easily be broken into to

Homeowners have been left fuming after a famous renters’ advocate posed in front of a vacant home and insinuated it could be easily broken into, but others are praising his message.

Tenants’ rights campaigner Jordan van den Berg, otherwise known as ‘Purplepingers’, is was accused of encouraging squatters by sharing an online list of abandoned homes he has stumbled across in Melbourne, Australia.

The list is aimed at helping people who are currently homeless or at risk of becoming homeless gaining access to shelter, the campaigner says.

He has now shared an image of himself on social media standing in front of an apparently abandoned home in the inner city suburb of Praharn, 3 miles south-east of Melbourne’s CBD.

Speaking to news.com.au back in April, van den Berg said he wanted to achieve three things with the controversial video.

“The number one motivation for it was to house people who need housing,” he said, reiterating his view that people in need of a home should squat in a vacant one.

“Number two was to prompt the government to act, to say that if they’re not going to do anything about land-banking, we can make them.

“People are struggling, and they have been struggling for a while, and it’s not getting better. It’s getting far worse. The government isn’t doing anything about it at the end of the day.

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“And number three was to remind landlords that it is unethical to have a home sit empty during a housing crisis.”

A squatter can become the legal owner of a home if they stay there long enough. IN

Owners can still evict anyone on their property before they reach that benchmark.

“Do you think it’s right?”

Mr van den Berg’s campaign caught the attention of the media and he appeared on The Project back in April to talk about his controversial plans.

The interview has been branded by many on social media as “out of touch” and “unbelievable.

He was grilled on his video and whether the encouragement of people to become squatters was a sensible solution to the rental crisis.

“I know we’re in a pretty serious housing crisis, but do you really think encouraging people to squat in private properties is the way to fix it?” The Project co-host Sarah Harris asked.

“Let me answer your question by asking you a question. Do you think it’s right we have thousands of vacant, abandoned homes while we have people living on the street?,” Mr van den Berg replied.

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Harris said she didn’t, but asked whether solving the housing crisis should be focused on policy instead.

Later in the interview, panellist Steve Price wasn’t convinced there were that many vacant properties going, but Mr van den Berg pointed out he had received more than 300 submissions from Australians about empty houses in their suburbs.

He also revealed he is aware that desperate people are squatting in abandoned properties.

“If someone needs a house, they can reach out to me and I’ll send them [details about] an empty home,” he said.

Harris expressed shock that people would “basically camp out in abandoned houses with no power” but Mr van den Berg said “camping out inside” was likely better than sleeping on the streets or in a park.

Co-host Waleed Aly pushed Mr van den Berg on whether he was encouraging people to break the law, but he pointed out that squatting, when done properly, is not technically illegal.

Many have stated that he should be “arrested” for his actions with some even threatening to “smash the living s***” out of him.

One furious comment on X, formerly Twitter, read: “I would love for you to break into my house. It wouldn’t end well for you, comrade.”

Country in crisis

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Australian renters have been hammered by steep price increases over the past few years, while rising demand and dwindling supply have sparked intense competition.

According to CoreLogic, rental growth has averaged 9.1 percent per year for the past three years, in stark contrast to the average rate of annual growth of 2 percent during the 2010s.

A survey conducted by the Tenants Union of New South Wales found 82.5 percent of renters have been subjected to a recent increase in their housing costs.

As a result, 84 percent had been forced to cut back on discretionary spending and other costs.

Research by advocacy group Everybody’s Home found almost half of Australians are in a state of housing stress, spending 30 percent of their income or more on housing.

Young people aged 18 to 34 have it toughest, with half of the cohort spending 40 percent of more. The current rental vacancy rate – that is, the proportion of all leased dwellings available on the market – is just one percent at a national level, while in Sydney it’s 1.1 percent.

In Melbourne it is at one percent, and in Brisbane it’s 0.9 percent, SQM Research data shows. Economists generally view a vacancy rate of less than two percent to be a sign of a rental market in crisis.

At the same time, data from the 2021 Census showed 10 percent of all residential dwellings were unoccupied on the night the national survey was conducted.

That equates to more than 1.04 million empty properties – many of which experts say might otherwise be available to tenants or homebuyers.

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