Karen Fletcher is furious. She stands on an uneven picnic table and her legs shake as she addresses the few hundred people who have gathered with her to protest the demolition of the public housing tower that reaches toward the sky behind her. Fletcher is the CEO of Flat Out, a Victorian advocacy service for criminalised women, trans, and gender diverse people, and public housing is one of the few options available to those who the organisation supports. Her voice becomes hoarse as she calls on the Victorian Government to stop the demolition of public housing, and her anger reflects the feelings of my colleagues and I who have attended the 19 October 2024 protest. Between us we have many decades’ experience working with Victoria’s homeless communities and have witnessed the steady decline of housing options for those people, but nothing as bad as this.

On 24 September 2023—just two days before he stepped aside as Victorian Premier—Daniel Andrews announced that all of the state’s 44 public housing towers would be demolished. The announcement was made without consultation with public housing tenants, Traditional Owners, or housing organisations, and to the surprise of members of his very own cabinet.¹ The plan means the towers will be demolished, the land sold off (or, according to the state government, leased), and rebuilt by private developers with a mix of private dwellings and community housing. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 public housing tenants will be uprooted from their homes and ripped from their communities without any guaranteed right of return. Existing public housing will likely be lost forever.²