On 28 March, 100 public housing tenants and their supporters rallied to protect public housing at Bellambi Estate in Wollongong. The people were angry, and they ought to be—the NSW Labor government is planning to demolish their homes and replace them with shops and luxury apartments.
Bellambi is a special place, the kind that is rare these days. Only a fifteen-minute drive from the centre of town, the estate is right on the beach and is made up of townhouses and stand-alone houses. Currently, about 95 percent of the 500 residences are public housing provided by Homes NSW (formerly the NSW Housing Commission).
But in recent years, the area has caught the eye of property developers and wealthy holidaymakers. So the Labor government and Homes NSW are rezoning the estate to allow the public land to be handed over to private developers, and allow a massive increase in density, adding 2,000 dwellings. The vast majority of this will be private housing. Homes NSW is promising only 30 percent “social housing”—a term that covers both public housing and community housing provided by private charities and NGOs, which comes with fewer rights for tenants.
Importantly, there is no guarantee that homes built to replace the existing public housing stock will be like-for-like replacements. We asked Paul Scully, the planning minister and MP for Wollongong, if tenants forced out of three-bedroom houses with backyards will receive those same amenities after the rebuild. He replied: “That is not what this redevelopment is”.
This is why it was so important for NSW Socialists to call the rally. Our activists had spent a few weekends at Bellambi, putting up posters, getting leaflets in letterboxes and knocking on doors. Every tenant we spoke to was angry about poor people being kicked out to make a playground for the rich.
But there was also a sense of despondency. One tenant had been threatened with eviction because she was one dollar short on her rent. Another had been waiting years for repairs to a sunken foundation that had opened a hole in her wall big enough to stick her arm through.
The rally allowed and airing of these grievances. In an open-mic section, half a dozen tenants delivered impassioned speeches. They rejected “being moved into shoebox apartments”, denounced the government for wanting “to move the rich bastards in”, and pointed out the anxiety that the proposal was causing to their families.
This is only the beginning of the fight for public housing and tenants’ rights in Bellambi and beyond. As one teenage public housing tenant said: “If they get away with this here, then they will move onto another suburb, then another, then another”. Such a spirit of solidarity will be needed to win this fight, and the fight for public housing across the state and the country.
The next rally to protect Bellambi Estate will be at midday on 23 May at Paul Scully’s office in Wollongong.
