Ms Kelly lives in a ground floor unit inside the decaying building on the corner of Northbourne and Condamine Street, her days punctuated with the sound of heavy dripping from burst pipes and broken taps.

Ms Kelly said she lives in the property, of which she is not officially a tenant, with her son.

The pair are being evicted by ACT Housing on Monday, in a story that captures the difficulties faced by both tenants and authorities as the government overhauls its stock of public housing.

Ms Kelly said she hoped to be able to stay in the flat just long enough to find somewhere else suitable to live.

“My son is going down to ACAT… trying to find someone to put a stoppage on the eviction, just for a bit,” she said.

“We’ve been packed-up since November.”

Housing ACT executive director Louise Gilding said Ms Kelly and her son had been offered seven separate properties, and refused them all.

She said there was a significant history to the case, which she could not share for privacy reasons, but she said Housing ACT had gone out of its way to help the pair.

The decision to evict had been upheld by the ACT Administrative and Appeals Tribunal as recently as Friday and the eviction would go ahead, she said.

“We have succesfully relocated over 500 tenants as part of the public housing renewal program.

“We are very disappointed that we haven’t been able to find a suitable property for this tenant.”

The Northbourne flats have been pegged for re-development since June 2017, with the ACT government recently issuing a tender to have the block Ms Kelly lives in demolished.

It could cost as much as $4.3 million to knock down the dilapidated apartments, which straddle Northbourne Avenue at Braddon and Turner.

In April the government also lodged plans to demolish the Stuart Flats, a large public housing block in Griffith, at an estimated cost of $4.2 million.

Ms Kelly said the ACT government had offered her alternative housing, but nowhere she had found suitable.

A place near Woden and Canberra Hospital would be ideal so she could get to her cardiologist easily, she said, and she’d prefer somewhere she didn’t have to lug her walking frame up flights of stairs.

“We’ve been offered stuff, but we don’t want something too temporary,” she said.

"And we don’t want a unit, we want a house. I’ve got grandchildren here. And we want a place where the grandchildren can gather.”

Homelessness and the lack of affordable housing are growing issues in the ACT.

A recent study by the Productivity Commission showed more than 1000 people in need of accommodation had been turned away by ACT authorities last year.

Emergency housing shelters have blamed the relocation of public housing tenants for a spike in the number of homeless seeking help.

And former ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope has criticised his old party for “abandoning” affordable housing initiatives.

Ms Kelly, of Yamatji and Nyungar mob, said she felt the need to speak out in order to draw attention to broader issues plaguing the territory.

“For people who don’t know how to speak up, it just happens without the fight,” she said.

“I think Australia is changing very fast. I don’t think we are catching up. Services are down, there are a lot of addictions and mental health issues. And there’s going to be more.”

The Northbourne flats were built in the 1950s in response to high demand for housing for public servants in Canberra but have fallen into disrepair in recent times.

Their demolition and sale will open up 14,766 square metres of mixed-use land for redevelopment on the Turner side and 10,776 square metres on the Braddon side.

Housing Minister Yvette Berry is working on a new housing affordability strategy, expected to be released later this year.