A real estate agent sparked backlash for a five-word critique directed at an activist that exposed the staggering number of empty homes in the country.
Rental activist Jordan van den Lamb, founder of the website s***rentals.org, organized a community-led banner drop at three empty houses in Melbourne on December 14.
Van den Lamb, known online as PurplePingers, along with other homeless activists occupied three adjacent houses on Western Street in New Brunswick.
He shared a video of 84 Western Street, which had the sign “this house has been empty (for) 15 years,” on Instagram, claiming the homeowner was not present.
The campaign was launched to expose how many properties are vacant during a national housing crisis.
Social media users were divided, with many criticizing Van den Lamb for his activism.
Nathan Westerbrink, manager of Raine and Horne’s Lane Cove on Sydney’s lower north shore, was angered by van den Lamb’s antics and left a scathing comment in response to the video.
“Pay your own rent, loser,” he wrote.
Jordan van den Lamb, known online as PurplePingers, organized a protest along with other activists at three adjacent houses that had been empty for more than two decades.
The head of Raine and Horne’s Lane Cove agency, Nathan Westerbrink, was angered by Mr van den Lamb’s antics and left a scathing comment in response to the video.
An amused Mr van den Lamb shared a screenshot of the comment, criticizing the real estate agent.
“Nothing makes me happier than seeing a director of a major RaineandHorne franchise get angry at my comments,” Van den Lamb wrote.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Westerbrink for comment.
Social media users were quick to criticize the real estate agent.
“He is everything that is wrong with society,” one wrote.
Another added: “How unprofessional.”
Others praised Mr van den Lamb and the community for highlighting Australia’s dire housing market.
“It’s absolutely abhorrent that these owners were able to leave them empty for all these years,” one person wrote.
‘Well done! Broken system. It’s all of Australia. Most of the houses in the area are also empty,” commented a second.
Van den Lamb (pictured) has actively highlighted vacant properties across the country.
A third added: ‘Good for you! There are too many homeless people; “Houses should not be empty.”
The protest came to an end after the police issued Mr van den Lamb and the other activists the order to “move on”.
It was the first of many planned protests targeting homeowners who deliberately keep their homes unoccupied.
Mr van den Lamb, who represents the Victorian Socialists in next year’s federal election, has previously criticized Australia’s housing market as a “rigged” system for the rich.
“In a wealthy society like Australia, no one should be struggling just to keep a roof over their head, especially when on any given night there are hundreds of thousands of empty houses,” Mr van den Lamb said.
‘It is perfectly legal for homeowners to leave their homes empty for years or even decades. This is unacceptable.
‘Leaving houses empty in the middle of a homelessness crisis is a crime against basic human decency.
‘Australia’s richest people have enjoyed huge windfalls thanks to rising house prices in recent decades.
‘The system is so rigged for the rich that they often lose very little by keeping their properties empty. This needs to change.”
Van den Lamb added that the housing market is currently at a “crisis point”, with rapid growth in homelessness and a skyrocketing number of people on waiting lists for public housing.
“We want to build a movement of the homeless, of renters, of all those suffering from the housing crisis,” said Mr van den Lamb.
‘We can’t expect our parliament of property owners to solve this for us. Most of them benefit from the current system. “People have to take matters into their own hands.”
In total, almost 100,000 homes were empty or underutilized in 2023, a staggering number for every 20 homes in Melbourne, according to a report by tax reform institute Prosper Australia.
This is enough to house more than 250,000 Australians, which is more than the combined number of homeless people and those on the public housing waiting list.
The report, which analyzed water use, found that more than 27,000 homes (1.5 percent of all homes) were left completely empty throughout 2023, and another 70,000 (3.7 percent of all homes) They were barely used.
It also found the highest concentration of empty homes was in Brunswick East, with 1,214 or 12.7 per cent of properties vacant.