Public Tenant Employment Program (PTEP): the Pilot
The pilot project
In early 2003, GJK Facility Services tendered for and won the Victorian State Government Office of Housing’s ‘Cleaning, Grounds & Maintenance, and Waste Management Contract’ at Melbourne’s Collingwood and Atherton Gardens Public Housing Estates.
This groundbreaking contract was the pilot for the Government’s Public Tenant Employment Program (PTEP), and included the mandatory clause that a minimum of 35 percent of the contractor’s facilities services staff must be engaged from the long-term unemployed who lived on the estates.
Instigated as a core component of the Government’s Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, the PTEP was developed to offer public housing tenants an alternative to welfare dependency, by empowering them in their own living environments.
As well as increasing social and economic investments being made in housing renewal across Victoria, it was envisaged that the PTEP would:
Increase people’s pride and participation in the community
Improve personal safety and reduce crime
Promote health and wellbeing
Increase access to key service and improve Government responsiveness