‘I would just like to see more people housed’: inside NSW’s social housing changes

Over the past few weeks, Carolyn Ienna has been watching the public home they lived in for 30 years disappear.
First, the inside was gutted and piled up in the former back common area. Then, the roof and most of the windows were removed.
“I know if I go there too often, I’m just going to get really sad,” says Ienna, a Wiradjuri person.

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Despite a three-year campaign to save the 17 public houses at 82 Wentworth Park Road in Glebe, the New South Wales government’s demolition has begun in earnest.
In their place, Homes NSW is building 43 units. Ienna, who has relocated to a public housing unit nearby, will not be returning.
The NSW government says Wentworth Park Road will remain state-owned and managed. But the demolition comes amid concerns about the supply of truly “public” housing owned and run by the state, with rent set according to a tenant’s income, which has been in decline under successive Labor and Coalition governments for decades.
Instead, so-called affordable and, more often, community housing – typically run by third-party private or non-profit providers – is being built.
Sometimes, the affordable or community housing is constructed on the site of former public housing estates, like at Waterloo South, where 749 public homes will be demolished to make way for 1,500 private houses, along with 600 affordable and 1,000 community homes.

Before winning power in March 2023, the now premier, Chris Minns, and the housing minister, Rose Jackson, told residents of estates slated for demolition by the Coalition government, including Glebe and Waterloo South, that their homes would not be sold off or privatised.
Labor has increased the number of affordable and community homes to be built at Waterloo South, but the project is going ahead without a fully public component, which some have criticised as a “partial privatisation” and a broken election promise.
Nonetheless, the Minns government has spruiked its public housing achievements, contrasting them with those of the former Coalition government.
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Between June 2023 and June 2024, there was a small increase in public housing stock for the first time in years, by about 350 homes.
Labor says Homes NSW is “on track for another record-breaking year” of new public housing completions, with 1,371 publicly owned and managed homes delivered in the 15 months since July 2024.
Homes NSW is yet to publish data on the net change in public housing stock during this period.
Jackson says the government is “proud of our record of increasing the number of public homes in NSW and putting a stop to the mass sell-off of public housing”.
The previous Coalition government sold more than $3bn of social homes and assets – about 7,600 homes in total by 2023.
They included Victorian houses in Millers Point – the first publicly owned homes in Australia – and the brutalist Sirius building, which was converted into luxury apartments.
In 2019, it also began transferring management of about 14,000 public homes to community housing providers, although these remained in the social housing stock.
NSW Labor oversaw the first purpose-built public housing in the country under its Housing Act of 1912. But the previous Labor government sold off about 5,500 public homes between 2003 and 2012, netting $1.2bn.
The Macquarie University housing expert Dr Alistair Sisson says the measure for social housing stock in real terms – the number of social homes per 100 people – has been consistently low under both Labor and Coalition governments in NSW.
It has steadily declined from 2.21 in 2005. In the first full financial year under the current government, it dropped from 1.87 to 1.86. Amid a national housing crisis, the state’s social housing waitlist has increased from 57,401 in March 2023 to 66,862 in September this year.
The Minns government’s Building Homes for NSW program, announced last year, aims to increase the social housing stock by 8,400 with $6.1bn in funding. There is also a $1bn push to refurbish 30,000 existing homes.
‘They’re completely different’
The terms social, public, community and affordable housing often cause confusion.
Sisson says using social and affordable housing interchangeably is the most egregious mistake because “they’re completely different”.
In “social” housing, the umbrella term for both public and community homes, rent is determined by income – people typically pay 25-30%. Affordable housing, however, is linked to market rent, with people receiving a discount of 20% or more.
In gentrified inner-city suburbs , paying 25% of your income or paying market rent discounted by 25% can be vastly different.
The chief executive of Shelter NSW, John Engeler, says any project which adds to either social or affordable housing stock should be welcomed. “We need more of all housing types,” he says.
Public and community housing operate along similar principles, but some public housing residents have reservations about moving out of the public system.
Leo Patterson Ross, the CEO of the Tenants’ Union of NSW, says community housing residents can’t appeal to the housing minister over decisions made by their provider.
And if they want to move property, they are usually limited to homes run by that provider. Some community housing providers are owned by religious organisations, with some LGBTQ+ applicants fearing discrimination.
Maintenance for community housing is conducted separately from public housing stock. Some public housing residents worry requests will go unanswered if they move into community housing.
But Ienna says they have had problems with maintenance in the public housing system, and has a friend who was “treated … really well” by their community housing provider.
At Waterloo South, almost a decade after residents were first told by the then Coalition housing minister Brad Hazzard that their homes would be redeveloped, the first relocations of residents began earlier this year.
Among the first 150 households told they would be moving was Norrie May-Welby. May-Welby, who spoke to Guardian Australia in 2023 about their opposition to the redevelopment, made sure they were relocated to a public housing unit.
Now that the stress of moving has passed, they are resigned to the government “outsourcing their responsibilities” to community housing providers.
“I would just like to see more people housed, however it happens.”
Residents remain suspicious of why existing public housing is being demolished. Guardian Australia has reported that the government has sold more than two-thirds of publicly owned sites suitable for housing to private developers – even though Homes NSW has the first right of refusal.
Karyn Brown, another Waterloo South resident who has campaigned to save the estate, faces an anxious wait for her notice to relocate.
“It beggars belief that the first idea is to demolish homes, rather than build them,” she says. “If developers don’t want to build it because it’s not profitable enough, then the government should build it.”
Home for life?
Housing debates are cyclical. Tom Zubrycki’s 1980 documentary Waterloo showed some residents fighting against the “slum” clearances that preceded the high-rise public housing estate others are now campaigning to save.
Many residents, including Ienna, feel the state’s approach has shifted to favour developers over residents.
Ienna remembers the first time they laid eyes on 82 Wentworth Park Road. It was a Friday afternoon – too late to pick up the keys from the housing office. They went to see it anyway.
“I looked through the glass doors … and I was just so excited. Because I’d been living in a vile boarding house for a couple of years. When I finally did get the place … one of the comments was: ‘This is your home for life’.”

This story was amended on 22 November 2025. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Wentworth Park public houses were being turned into affordable homes. The NSW government says they will remain as public housing units.