Millers Point - ridding expensive suburbs of Public Housing
Millers Point is not within Redfern Waterloo but aspects of the March 2014 Government decision to remove public housing from Millers Point has implications for all of Sydney's public housing that sits in areas that are in high demand by the private market and Redfern and Waterloo are rapidly becoming part of that club. While some of the Millers Point public housing was heritage others like the Sirius building does not have high maintenance costs and is ideally suited to older tenants. This housing's only problem was that it is public housing in one of the most desirable parts of the city. The logic of the Sirius sale pushes public housing from the desirable areas to the undesirable fringes of the city. With 4,500 public housing units in Redfern Waterloo the Sirius decision sends a shiver down the back of inner city public tenants. This is why REDWatch has set up this section of our website to explore these issues and to support public tenants in Millers Point in their struggle to stay in Millers Point.
This is the letter from Family and Community Services Housing NSW that Millers Point tenants received had delivered on Wednesday 19 March, or found shoved under their door. Imagine how you would react if you received such a letter in similar circumstances. It is no wonder people were wandering the streets in shock!
The NSW Government & Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) the owner of public housing also produced a media pack in addition to the widely available media release from Pru Goward last Wednesday. Unlike the media release the media pack is not available on line. This media pack is attached and provides a good insight into how the NSW Government & LAHC managed the media event at the same time as keeping this information from NGO’s who may have been able to provide alternative perspectives. In part this probably explains the slant of much of the media reporting about the issue. File is 4 MB PDF.
The following letter was issued by the three resident groups in the area under the banner of The Millers Point Community Defence Group following the the anouncement.
REDWatch has kept its members and supporters up to date through its email lists. Below we have drawn some of the material from these emails to provide an overview for a wider grouping of REDWatch's concerns.
This is the Relocation Fact sheet provided for tenants in government owned properties in Millers Point, the Sirius building and Gloucester Street in the Rocks by Housing NSW. File is 70KB PDF.
The banner below has been produced by some of those in the Sirius Building. It came to REDWatch with the note that appears below the graphic.
This is the Government response to the the Government comissioned Social Impact Assessment undertaken for Millers Point. The Social Impact Assessment and the Government resposne were released after the Minister anounced that public housing in Millers Point and the Rocks would be sold.
This is the Social Impact Assessment commissioned by Land and Housing Corporation which the community was told it would be shown before it was used by Government. It was released along with the Government response after the Minister announced public Housing in millers Point and Rocks would be sold off. The Government response rejected a number of recomendations in this Government commissioned report. File is 4.6Mb PDF