The Berejiklian government’s attempt to lock serious drug offenders out of inner-city public housing estates is unintentionally hurting innocent and vulnerable individuals on the waiting list, social workers say, as new data reveals the policy will disproportionately hurt Indigenous Australians.

The state government this week began sending letters out to hundreds of people on NSW’s public housing list, telling them they must consent to a criminal background check before being considered for public housing in Surry Hills, Redfern, Waterloo or Glebe.

Anyone with a conviction for a serious drug offence in the past five years would be barred from consideration, a policy the opposition says will simply shift the problem elsewhere.

New data also reveals that Indigenous Australians account for one in four of those with recent drug dealing convictions in the four suburbs, and that only a small number of recently convicted drug manufacturers live in the area.

Individuals have been told they will be punished if they fail to respond to the government’s letters or refuse to consent to a criminal background check.

The Community Restorative Centre’s program director, Mindy Sotiri, frequently works in the public housing estates, supporting former prisoners with complex and disadvantaged backgrounds reintegrate into society.



She said most of the people she helps, for various reasons, will not open, read, comprehend, or respond to the letters being sent out by the state government, even if they have no history of drug dealing.

“It’s not just people that have convictions that are going to end up being excluded from those estates, it’s anybody who doesn’t respond to the letter, which I think is going to be a much larger and more significant group, because our clients just don’t [respond],” Sotiri told Guardian Australia.

“So many vulnerable people won’t actually receive the letter and, if they do, they won’t know what to do with it, they won’t be able to read it. It’s complicated. The consent form itself is really hard to understand.”

The state’s social housing minister, Pru Goward, said the policy was designed to improve safety in public housing estates, reduce antisocial behaviour and address the “temptation” for drugs.

But Sotiri says the pain it is causing far outweighs any potential benefits in reducing the availability of drugs. She requested data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research on drug dealing and manufacturing convictions in the four suburbs recently.

She said the results showed a “minimal” problem with drug manufacturing.

There were just 11 people convicted in the areas for drug manufacturing in the last five years.

About 272 have been convicted of drug dealing in the suburbs in the past five years, about 54 a year, according to the data.

Of the 272 drug dealing convictions, 73 were held by Indigenous Australians, or 26%.

The data is not a precise measure of who the policy will affect. The state government says it will only apply for serious drug dealing offences but the data on drug dealing is not broken down to allow such an assessment.

A spokeswoman for Goward said the suburbs were identified as “high risk areas for drug dealing” in consultation with NSW police.

She said Bocsar statistics showed the large majority of people would reoffend within five years.

“The new inner city allocations policy aims to further improve the safety of residents by reducing the temptation for people who have a history of drug manufacture or serious drug supply to reoffend by not housing them in suburbs identified as honeypots for drug dealing,” the spokeswoman said.

“Instead, these persons will be housed elsewhere in the inner city. No current tenants are being moved as part of the Inner City Local Allocation Strategy.”