The ACT Government's failure to earmark any land for public housing in Red Hill in 2017-2018 gives some credence to suggestions it is more concerned with revenue than looking after the most disadvantaged members of the community.
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Junior Coalition partner, The Greens, have been highly critical of the Government's just released, and long overdue, housing affordability targets for the current year.
Greens planning spokeswoman, Caroline Le Couteur, said as a result of the targets the proportion of Canberra residential stock allocated to public housing would fall from 7.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent.
Ms Le Couteur said the decision to not allocate any land in Red Hill, one of the ACT's most expensive suburbs, was disappointing.
"I don't think it is appropriate to have areas in Canberra that are purely upper income enclaves," she said.
The Barr Government has profited handsomely from the relocation of public housing from Red Hill and along Northbourne Avenue in recent years.
Almost 500 tenants were affected when the decision was made to sell off the public housing towers along the Northbourne corridor as part of the light rail development in 2014.
The ACT Government decided to demolish a complex of 144 public housing units in Red Hill to make way for 550 new homes and apartments. A community outcry over the increase in housing density saw this subsequently scaled back significantly.
It is ironic that Yvette Berry, now the ACT Housing Minister, was one of the most vocal critics of the Northbourne public housing redevelopment.
In June 2014 she asked the then Housing Minister, Shane Rattenbury, for details on where displaced tenants would live, noting the flats were homes, not just housing stock that could be replaced "roof for roof".
Ms Berry said at the time that a third of the tenants wanted to live in Gungahlin or Belconnen, a third wanted to live in Tuggeranong and that the remaining third wanted to stay in the city.
"They should be allowed to stay; I think it is a responsibility for all of us... Canberra should be the kind of city that is proud of giving people a hand up when they need it," she said.
While some public housing is planned for inner city areas, including Braddon, in 2017-2018, the lion's share of allocations are for areas a long way from Civic.
Communities have been broken up, extended family units dislocated, students forced to move schools and some of the least empowered people in our community have found themselves with long, and often complex, public transport journeys to access essential services.
While the Government claims it has already allocated "a significant proportion of public housing and community housing sites across urban renewal sites and adjacent to the Northbourne Avenue corridor", it is yet to say why this year's housing affordability targets were released so late in the day.
It will interesting see if the current imbalance is addressed in the next targets - whenever they appear.
