Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) opposes the sale of these properties. Hundreds of tenants will lose their homes, a community will be lost and many elderly tenants will be forced to leave an area where they have spent their whole lives.
The sale of an entire precinct of public housing is unprecedented in NSW and will significantly deplete the supply of public housing properties in the inner Sydney area. The inner city is one of the highest demand areas for social housing in the state. There are thousands of applicants on the waiting list and a quarter of them need urgent housing.
RLC assists applicants who have waited years to be housed, including women escaping domestic violence, people experiencing homelessness and those with severe mental and physical health issues.
These applicants have established a need to live in the inner city, because of family, carers and medical, social and community services in the local area. The sale of 293 properties will mean these people wait longer, compounding disadvantage for the people most vulnerable in our community.
The NSW Auditor General’s report, Making the Best Use of Public Housing, drew attention to the long waiting list for public housing in NSW, currently at 57,000 households and growing. The report also highlighted the fact that in recent years, the NSW Government has disposed of more properties than it has acquired or built. This means that public housing stock is shrinking and fewer people are being housed.
Despite pledging that the proceeds of the sale of properties from Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks will be “reinvested into the social housing system”, the NSW Government has not expressed an intention to use the money to purchase additional properties in the inner Sydney area.
In 2013 the Government commissioned an assessment of the social impact that the proposed sales would have on the Millers Point community.
The report was written after consultation with residents and other stakeholders and highlighted the serious impact that the sales would have on both the residents and the whole Millers Point area. The assessment warned that the sales risked damaging the physical and mental health of the tenants and that older people were most at risk.
The Government subsequently published a response that rejected many of the key recommendations made in the report and dismissed alternatives to the sale of all public housing properties in the area.
Among the announced sales is the Sirius Building in The Rocks, consisting of seventy apartments designed specifically for public housing. The Sirius Building was not included in the 2013 assessment, nor were the residents consulted on the sale.
In addition, the decision to sell the properties was made before the conclusion of the current NSW Legislative Council Inquiry into Public, Social and Affordable Housing. This Inquiry has heard repeated criticism of the Government’s failure to develop a clear direction for a sustainable housing sector. The Inquiry has also heard that the Government, despite claiming that the sales would return hundreds of millions of dollars, has commenced the relocation without any economic modeling or a sales strategy.
In our submission to the Inquiry, RLC opposed the sale of any public housing properties in the inner city area and emphasised the pressures that tenants and applicants face in a public housing system where demand far outstrips supply.
The sale of properties in Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks will have a devastating impact on many tenants in the area, particularly the elderly and those with strong ties to the community.
