Public housing tower demolition hits at the heart of our community

In Melbourne there’s not enough affordable housing.

But with news that the State Government is demolishing our inner-city public housing towers, and with Labor confirming there will be no public housing rebuilt on the land at Flemington and North Melbourne after the towers are demolished, the problem is only going to get worse.

We can see the housing crisis everywhere we look. More and more people are sleeping rough.

Renters are making more and more sacrifices, while they worry about the arrival of an email from the real estate agency announcing the latest increase in the rent.

For people who are trying to buy their own home, the realisation that they don’t stand a chance continues to rise.

House prices have soared and RealEstate.com is suggesting that rents could rise 20 per cent next year. Over the past three years in Melbourne, the rents on apartments in the CBD have already increased by 14 per cent.

Wages aren’t keeping up. The housing market is cooked, which is why it’s so hard to understand why the Victorian Labor government recently sent residents of the public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne a letter telling them that time is up, they’ll have to go.

While the writing was on the wall, we had been hoping that there would be a reprieve, and that people would get to stay in their homes and not be forced to pack up and try and find somewhere to live.

This is not going to be easy, with public housing disappearing and rents increasing.

Ripping down people’s homes, handing off the land to private developers and pushing people out into the cold, is heartless.

People have lived in these places for years, building friendships, families and communities.

They’ve played sport together, shared meals, dealt with COVID lockdowns, fallen in love and found friends to rely on, but now their communities are being torn apart.

We need more public housing, not less. But Labor is washing its hands of the people who live in public housing.

Labor and the Liberals are funded by big banks and the property industry profiting from the housing crisis.

They both support unlimited rent increases and they’re giving $176 billion in tax handouts to wealthy property investors that deny renters the chance to buy their first home.

The Greens will keep fighting to stop the demolitions and build more public housing. In a wealthy country like ours, everyone deserves an affordable place to live. •