Housing activists gathered outside Homes Victoria in the CBD on June 3 to protest Victorian Labor’s plan to demolish 44 public housing towers.
The demolition is part of Labor’s broader strategy to sell off public land and replace public housing with private dwellings, thereby handing developers windfall profits.
Labor’s policy is not just about eradicating the estates, but the social institution of public housing. Communities will be broken up, and providing housing to the most vulnerable will be handed to non-government organisations.
Harry Millward, national secretary of the Renters and Housing Union, and Gabrielle de Vietri, Greens MP for Richmond, vowed to stop the destruction of public housing.
Public housing residents’ speeches were telling; these are not just buildings, but homes and communities, and we need to fight to protect them at all costs for the future.
As soil and concrete testing starts, activists are organising a daily picket at the Flemington and North Melbourne public housing towers.