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A Western Australian office has pulled off a property management masterclass to help families left homeless by the recent bushfire in Yarloop.
Just Property Management chief executive Corrie Piripi said his agency, which is based 75 kilometres away in Bunbury, has helped at least three families relocate by working closely with existing landlords.
“We had a family about to move into one of our properties [in Bunbury], but the landlord of the property, whose family’s home was destroyed in Yarloop, called us and asked if there was any chance of not putting in the approved tenants because they wanted to move their family into the property,” he told RPM.
“The tenants were thankfully really good with it and we just said to the tenants, ‘we will do everything that we can to get you guys a property immediately’. We got them something else, so it was a win-win for all parties.”
Just Property Management has found accommodation for other Yarloop residents and announced on Facebook that it would fast-track applications for anybody affected by the fires. The agency has also organised several fundraisers.
Mr Piripi said a private jet owned by several Bunbury businesspeople ran free flights for two days between Perth and Bunbury to help people stranded on both sides of the fire.
“We started running free flights to help people get up to Perth and back, while getting people from Perth down to Bunbury for two days with flights running all day,” he said.
“It’s an eight-seater plane, so it’s not huge, but it’s definitely been very helpful to a lot of families.”
According to Mr Piripi, helping with the Yarloop community came naturally to his business, particularly since his background is in social work.
“Charity work has been and always will be a part of what we do. For example, we do stuff with local schools and I mentor a group of about 40 kids on goal setting and positive habits,” he said.
“We’ve also done community fundraisers for families that have been in need; we did one a year ago for a family where the father was diagnosed with cancer and the eldest son had just died of cancer, so we did a fundraiser for them and we got about 200 people there.”
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