BY LUCAS BAIRD
This month, the government announced that 28 units would be made available to the estimated 90 remaining residents living in the suburb.
The move follows the government announcement last year that the suburb would be sold off to fund social housing further from the city centre.
Sociologist, Eva Cox, said that the government was exhibiting a form of elder abuse by opting to remove many elderly residents from public housing in Miller’s Point.
“If you have 80 year olds who have lived in the area for all their lives, are third generation of living in the area, elder abuse will become an issue,” Ms Cox said.
Ms Cox attributed this to the money-first attitude taken up by the state government.
“If we are serious about understanding communities, if we are serious about understanding people, then the idea that you can just push poor people out because they happen to live in houses that have been around a long time and have increased in value is very brutal.”
Myra Demetrio’s situation is one of 90 residents fighting for 28 apartments.
Ms Demetrio recently had to move into a more accessible home but now she is in danger of losing it.
She told City Hub she isn’t confident of what could happen if she doesn’t get offered one of the apartments
“I think they have a jolly hide to throw us out and say that they will give us this and this when there are 6000 people on the waiting list.” Ms Demetrio said
“I know someone who had to wait 27 years for a place.”
The Millers Point community is currently fighting for the creation of more public housing in the area to help those like Ms Demetrio to stay in the community.
The Millers Point, Dawes Point and the Rocks Public Housing Tenants group member, Barney Gardner, asserted that more than half of the residents could stay if the government made use of the available non-heritage housing in the area.
“These [apartments] would get us up to the 52 or 54 unit mark.”: Mr Gardner said.
“We would only require between 15 and 20 heritage classified two bedroom units, and that would secure everyone who wants to stay here.”
Mr Gardner explained that his group would do whatever it could to help the tenants
“We have the legal people from Redfern Legal and as a group we will sit down in the interview with them [the tenants].”
“We are there if they need it”: he said.
Millers Point residents are also worried about how this mass removal will affect the community.
“They [community members] will not get what they want, there will be many unhappy people and there will be social and further disruption of the Millers Point Community.” Local resident John McInerney told City Hub.
Support from the general public has been limited for the Millers Point community.
Ms Cox attributed this to people being unsure of what to do rather than a lack of care.
“The whole thing is pushed in a way that makes it very difficult to know what to do,”Ms Cox said.
“I think there is a lot of sympathy for the fact that they are ruining a community which has been there forever.”
The residents expect to receive the offers for limited housing in mid-January.
RESOURCED: http://www.altmedia.net.au/residents-in-squabble-over-minimal-millers-point-availability/112132
