Friends,

I am writing share the news that our fight to keep our neighbours in their homes is lost.

LFD Homes will close the boarding houses on March 3. The evictions will be completed.

The men have started to vacate into the limited number of private and public alternative homes that are out there. Today, 7 of the men are yet to find somewhere else to live. The services are doing their best to find homes before March 3. The men have 1 week. The options are few, and you cannot believe the stuff that is actually out there. I know. I have seen dozens of places over the last weeks.

I took Ray K to see a studio on Saturday that was so small you could touch the side walls with your arms extended. Shared bathroom. No kitchen. The door to the room next door had been kicked in. The cost? $305 per week. There were 10 people in the queue to view it. 30 minutes after the inspection, the room was gone.

The service providers now define affordable housing as anything under $400 per week. Today, the men pay $150-$200 per week. All are pensioners. $400 per week is more than half of their pensions.

Within a 10 kilometre radius of their current homes, there are 39 places currently available for rent under $400 per week. 9 of those places are parking garages for cars. The 30 rooms will be gone within a week.

The men that have been rehomed have been scattered across the city. They are living
alone, in completely foreign environments. Those that have been found homes are grateful that they have and have jumped at whatever was available.

•  Alfie to Daceyville
• Rod to Waterloo
• Imre to Kings Cross
• Clem and Wock to Campsie
•  Ray R to Malabar
•  Rod to Penrith
• Ed to Glebe
• Pete to Ultimo
• John to Eastgardens
•  Richard to Annandale

With the services, I personally moved Richard last Thursday. He was devastated. Imagine starting all over again at 79 years of age. And what starting all over again means for all the men is not just a new home in a foreign suburb. It’s also finding new doctors and health supports, new service providers, new supermarkets, new transport routes, new friendships and companionships, etc. etc. It’s everything. Starting again largely from scratch. At 80.

Ray R moved the same day and was inconsolable with grief. After 46 years in his room,
where he brought one of his sons up, he has to start again in a place that is 45 minutes by bus from his old home. He knows no-one there. No-one makes his lunch and dinner for him. He doesn’t see his best mates anymore.

Alfie is so lost that he spends his days walking the streets of our suburb, only sleeping in his new place in Daceyville. He lived here for 35 years.

This is a shocking outcome and is one that our campaign has been fighting to stop.

The solution was simple. Buy the boarding houses. Stop the closure. Prevent the evictions.Keep the family together. Again, the governments made their choices.

Our campaign continues however to prevent the developer from turning the boarding houses into 4 luxury apartments. The loss of affordable housing in the city has to be stopped. Another 20-room boarding house in Darlinghurst has just been sold to a developer who plans to convert it into a 75-person backpackers. Another 20 men into the social housing queue. On top of the 20 who joined the queue when their Petersham boarding house burnt down 2 weeks ago. And there are many more happening right now.

Enough is enough.

We will continue to tell the story of the men and we will keep you updated on our campaign to stop the developer.

The battle is not over. There is more to follow.

Thank you for your incredible support of the men.

Please share this update if you can.

Best wishes,
Mike