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Amid concerns about the dwindling supply of public housing, residents in the Melbourne towers set for demolition share distress over their uncertain future and their treatment by the state government. By Anna Stewart.
Melbourne towers residents speak: ‘We all have anxiety’
In September 2023, Victoria’s then premier, Daniel Andrews, announced plans to demolish 44 of Melbourne’s public housing towers. It was the kind of news best delivered sensitively, or with an exit strategy. Andrews had the latter – he resigned the next week.
Two years on, most of the towers residents have vacated, and those who remain are told they must do so this month. They have limited options to relocate – some far from the amenities and friends they have long depended upon. Many face higher utilities costs, with the addition of water bills, or higher rents. Kensington Neighbourhood House Community support worker Catherine Hude welcomes the government programs that offer energy bill relief but says “there is concern about future billing cycles when these financial supports are no longer available.”
A Homes Victoria spokesperson said they were “working with residents and the community every step of the way” and all households will continue to pay no more than 25 per cent of their household income in rent. “We’ve been clear that social housing will increase across every site, delivering more homes for people on the housing waitlist.”
Residents are unsure whether they will be rehomed in public housing, though. The towers are government-managed properties, with long-term leases capped at a quarter of the household’s gross income. Community housing, managed by non-profit providers, can cost up to 30 per cent of household income, and there are no standardised limits. Rents on affordable housing are about 75 to 80 per cent of market rate. All of these are known collectively as social housing.
The Saturday Paper spoke to three tenants still living in the North Melbourne and Flemington towers, who offer clear insight into how the state government treats people in public housing. Among them is community leader Barry Berih, who last year became the lead plaintiff in a failed class action lawsuit arguing that Homes Victoria contravened the Human Rights Charter in its handling of the decision. The case is currently under appeal.
In the meantime, security is becoming an issue in the towers. Berih has not yet packed his belongings. HK and Duwan, who do not wish to be named in full, miss the life around them. All worry how their former neighbours are coping, especially the elderly. They wait and wait, while the flats empty and fall silent around them.
HK, 51, resident of 12 Holland Court, Flemington I came to Australia to visit my mum and two brothers at the beginning of 2020. My mother came to Australia to look after my brother, who became disabled after a traffic accident. I came only with a three-month tourist visa – I am a barrister registered with the Istanbul Bar Association – but the Covid-19 pandemic struck, they cancelled my return flight and I was stranded.
We are still living in the same unit in 12 Holland Court, and it is going to be demolished soon. My mum and two brothers have been living here since 2012, and they love being here. My mum loves gardening and she uses the community gardens in Wingate Avenue, and her hobby supports our family’s budget. We get all of our greens from the garden: green onions, parsley, coriander and green beans. I love my mum’s gardening. She was expecting a garden for her at our new place, but there is no space. Flemington is very close to every facility our family uses – doctors, hospitals – and because of that, we don’t want to go anywhere.
One day, two people came to our door from the housing office and they announced to us that we had to move out, that they were going to build new houses for us. This was the first time we heard about the demolition. In our community, so many have language barriers. They don’t understand. We try to inform them, because [the Department of Families, Fairness and] Housing did not inform them correctly. If we knew before, maybe we could have resisted more collaboratively.
My friends in the new buildings have a lot of issues with building quality. For example, one of them tried to put their TV on the wall and it was not possible because the walls are not solid enough to hold the TV. Actually, these old buildings have more quality than new ones. So, renovation must be the better solution.
I believe there is a secret agenda with Housing here. I believe they are trying to get rid of the burden of low-income families. The new buildings they have moved people to are all community housing; there is no public housing option for them anymore. There are fundamental differences between community housing and public housing. There is a disguised systemic shift in public housing to community housing, and the demolition serves that change.
Barry Berih, 31, resident of 33 Alfred Street, North Melbourne I’ve been living in public housing since I was born, and I’ve worked and studied in the North Melbourne area. I found out that the towers were going to be demolished through a media conference. It was just on TV.
The communication has been very poor, in terms of what’s happening, what’s going on. They said September is a deadline for us to relocate, but there’s no timeline for an agreement about what they are offering us in terms of services or properties, all that kind of stuff. I’ve told them where I want to live, but I haven’t actually seen any properties yet. I’m just still waiting for them to give me a call. I’ve tried to call them, message them, email them – everything – as best I could. So it’s a waiting game.
The idea is that you choose the suburbs that you want to move in to and they have to actually find properties in those local suburbs. But the form itself you have to fill out is really very complicated. For a lot of residents, English is not their first language. They are just forcing people to sign these papers without speaking to them or understanding them. It’s very hard to know whether these new places will cost higher or lower, so I’m trying to figure out what I can do for myself in terms of my work. Because I have a disability, I have a [Disability Support Pension]. Plus, I work at the YMCA in customer service. So it’s not really enough and I might have to take extra shifts.
It’s very quiet in the building at the moment, like a ghost. Some families have moved out to other suburbs, such as Craigieburn, Tarneit and Werribee. I always get calls from people because they don’t have any of the same services in their new area. I’m a community leader, so I help by sending them messages about their new local council, family medicals, legal services and schools. My phone is buzzing every hour or two each day with something new.
I just want people outside of public housing to understand what’s happening. This is a mental-health issue. Trying to change to a new school, for example, to a new environment, to a new community, is overwhelming. For me, the local mosque is the thing I’ll miss most, as well as the local community.
Duwan, 60s, resident of 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington There are a few of us left in my building. We’re waiting to relocate, but we don’t know when. We all have anxiety. It used to be that when we saw people around the building, we would say, “Hi, how are you?” Now, we don’t ever say this. We say, “Did they relocate you?” That’s what our life has become. The stress has given me high blood pressure.
They called me last Friday about a house in [Airport West]. I said, “Please don’t call me if you don’t have a perfect place in the North Melbourne or Flemington area.” Our grandchildren go to school nearby, and there’s also Victoria Market, the Royal Melbourne and my dentist. I need to be able to take my husband, who has dementia, to his appointments. I don’t want to go far because I don’t drive. I don’t want to be far from the 57 tram.
My daughter has already moved. She used to live in the same building as me, with my grandchildren, so we saw each other a lot. But now they live far away.
We are a community. No matter where we’ve come from, we look after each other. It’s the simple [things], like if someone is in hospital, we visit them. If someone has an emergency, we help. If I have nothing to cook today, I will call my neighbour. That’s how we became one family.
I don’t think I’d be able to find this somewhere else. I wish I could get some of the people from my building to move next to me wherever I end up.
In my building, we don’t pay for water or heating. But if I go away and go further, I will have to pay for electricity, I will have to pay for water, I will have to pay for gas. It causes me anxiety and depression and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to avoid it. In the new buildings, you can’t transfer your electricity, internet or your phone. If you want a different provider, you need to pay extra to have it installed.
They pretend they’re communicating well, but they aren’t. They hid it from us. The government doesn’t care about us. They make promises, so that we elect them, then after we elect them, they act like they don’t know us.
I wish I could have my current place renovated, so I could stay there the rest of my life.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 13, 2025 as "Towers residents: ‘We all have anxiety’".
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