Barriers to Aboriginal people accessing public housing 1942-1966
A system of public housing in NSW began in 1942. The Government built houses and subsidised housing for low income families. Many barriers prevented Aboriginal people from accessing public housing.
The Housing Commission of NSW was established in 1942 by the Housing Act 1941 (NSW) (). The Commission’s immediate focus was to clear slums and re-house those in poverty. The Act did not make any reference to Aboriginal people.
At this time, many Aboriginal people were living on reserves where housing was owned by the Aborigines Welfare Board (previously the Aborigines Protection Board) (see SUB0305 for more information about housing on reserves). However, many Aboriginal people were not living on reserves and needed housing.
From 1945, housing policy in NSW has been influenced by the Commonwealth through a series of Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements (Housing Agreements) ().
The 1945 Housing Agreement provided States with loan funds over 53 years to build rental housing for people ‘in need of proper housing accommodation’, with an agreed allocation of housing to be given to members of the armed forces and their families (). The Housing Commission built large amounts of housing throughout the 1940s and 1950s ().
From the mid 1950s there was a shift in focus to home ownership, led by the Commonwealth Menzies Government, and the Housing Commission began to sell more of what it built (). This became a pathway to home ownership – between 1956 and 1969, around one third of all Housing Commission housing (or public housing) in NSW was sold to tenants (). Aboriginal people were largely unable to benefit from this pathway because, as described below, very few Aboriginal people rented from the Housing Commission ().
Throughout this period, housing policy and housing estates were designed to encourage residents to become ‘good citizens’ as much as they were designed to offer accommodation. An emphasis was placed on creating ‘respectable lives based on wage labour, moral probity, the nuclear family and conventional gender relations’ ().
Aboriginal people were considered for housing under the normal eligibility criteria and their applications had to be accompanied by a report from the Aborigines Welfare Board ().
In practice, few Aboriginal people were able to access public housing (). No consideration was given to the living requirements of Aboriginal families. Houses were designed for nuclear families, despite the evidence showing that Aboriginal households varied in size and formation ().
The ‘fixed residence’ model of public housing was also incompatible with some Aboriginal patterns of life (). As a result, very few Aboriginal people actually lodged public housing applications ().
Another obstacle for Aboriginal people was the Housing Commission’s Tenancy Advisory Committees. These committees were established to approve applications and had representatives of the Ex-Services League, a women’s group, Local Government and local Members of Parliament (). A letter from the Secretary of the Housing Commission in 1960 shows how this could have been an obstacle for Aboriginal people:
In any case where it is felt that positive evidence exists that a family – irrespective of colour - will not prove suitable tenants (because of low living standards, unreformed criminal tendencies, acute incompatibility with other families, and so on) local Tenancy Committees may refuse admission to the eligibility lists ().
As a result of these obstacles, Aboriginal people were a negligible portion of the people who accessed public housing during this period ().
Apart from public housing, the Aborigines Welfare Board made attempts to establish housing for Aboriginal people in towns, rather than on reserves. In 1940 the Board introduced a new housing policy that Aboriginal people living on rations should be relocated to towns (). In 1943 the law was changed () to give the Board the power to acquire ‘for approved families’ suitable small holdings ‘on which dwellings may be erected’ (). In Parliament, the Government said this would facilitate the Board’s aim to assist ‘the assimilation of better-class lighter caste Aboriginal families into the general community’ ().
The Board intended a scheme of house-building, but this was delayed by the war (). In its 1949 Annual Report, the Board said that subject to it being ‘supplied with adequate funds… it is anticipated that the object of providing good homes for every necessitous Aboriginal family will be achieved within the next decade (). However, in 1957 the Board reported that ‘[h]ousing remains a major problem’ and estimated significant further funding would be required to ‘complete the program’ ().
Part of the Board’s intention with its power to acquire land for Aboriginal families was to encourage certain ‘Aborigines, particularly those of lighter caste… to become merged with the general community’ (). Its 1967 Annual Report referred to a Board policy that ‘town housing is to be provided in accordance with the stage of development of the Aborigines concerned’ (). It used its official magazine, ‘Dawn’, to publicise families who moved to towns as ‘success’ stories (, ).
The lack of housing for Aboriginal families had the effect of ‘placing children at risk’ of a determination of neglect and being removed from their families. For example, 1965 correspondence within the Board refers to a family being advised the Child Welfare Department was likely to take action against them due to their housing situation, even though the family’s application for Housing Commission Homes had been rejected by the Tenancy Advisory Committee ().
In 1961, Australian Governments agreed on ‘the meaning of the policy of assimilation, to which all Australian governments adhere, and on methods of advancing that policy’ (). One of those ‘methods’ was ‘to encourage nomadic and semi-nomadics to adopt a more settled way of life’. It was agreed that housing required ‘particular attention’. Assimilation policy would continue to guide housing policy (see, for example, ).