As Sydney’s Waterloo residents come up against their next historic upheaval at the hands of the state government, we take a moment to reflect on the history of the public housing towers and the broader issue of housing justice.
The suburb of Waterloo had long been home to the working class and the poor. In the 1970s, the state government commenced work on a program to “solve” the problems of poverty and overcrowding by pulling down inner Sydney’s terrace houses and replacing them with massive public housing tower blocks. Zubrycki’s 1981 film tells the story of local residents’ resistance to this program of slum clearance and displacement by the Housing Commission.
At present, it appears that the state Labor government has refused to learn the lessons of history, preferring to adopt unjust and poorly planned housing developments which displace the working class and the poor to ever more distant outer suburbs.
Join us as we watch and host a guided discussion about “Waterloo,” the history it recounts, and the insights it can give us into our present struggle for housing justice.
