As tower lockdowns brought Melbourne's overcrowded public housing system into focus, the problems faced today echo those confronted by the state's leaders early last century.
Almost 70 years ago, Father Gerard Kennedy Tucker declared there was "no use moving a certain type of slum people into decent houses".
In 1951, Father Tucker was quoted in Melbourne's Herald newspaper where he proposed shifting "the better type" of disadvantaged people to newly built public housing towers and to leave the properties that remained to "the real slum dwellers". The Housing Commission of Victoria was set up, leading to the demolition of the city's slums over several decades.
More than 40 high-rise towers were built across 19 suburbs, including the buildings in Flemington and North Melbourne that have been at the centre of news coverage this week. Multiple generations of large families live in two or three-bedroom apartments, including those in towers subjected to hard lockdowns because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
There was a heavy police and health department presence outside public housing blocks in Flemington during the hard lockdown.The Andrews Government has pledged $185 million towards redevelopments in eight public estates in a bid to create up to 2,500 public housing dwellings.
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