The Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) told NITV News it has signed a document worked on by Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy's Jenny Munro to secure finances for low-income housing for Indigenous peoples at the Block in Redfern.
This agreement guarantees that the AHC's Pemulwuy Project will build 62 affordable houses for low-income Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at the Block.
The project's planned commercial development will be constructed simultaneously.
Last week Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said the federal government would contribute $5 million to low-income housing at the iconic landmark in the Sydney suburb.
"Everybody wants on Aboriginal land, affordable housing for Aboriginal people, that’s what they decided to do with the block, and I think that they have a much higher level of confidence that that’s going to happen," Mr Scullion told NITV News.
The federal grant will see the company secure $65 million in bank finance to proceed with its project.
For 15 months, the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy has protested the Aboriginal Housing Company's plans for a major commercial and residential development, a scheme that provided only minimal low-cost housing, amounting to a rejection of the reason why former Labor Leader Gough Whitlam first gave the land back to the community in 1972.
The embassy protesters had been concerned that the commercial development might take priority and that affordable housing might not eventuate.
Jenny Munro, founder of the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, at the Supreme Court in Sydney to celebrate a $70 million federal government deal ensure 62 homes for Indigenous families at the Block in Redfern.
But the AHC had argued that commercial developments such as shops and offices needed building to help fund the housing.
In 2014 the AHC said that the tent embassy protesters were on AHC-owned land and that it was working to "protect The Block" to ensure it remained Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-owned and controlled.
The AHC website said that Aboriginal people were at risk of losing their land to the NSW government if crime and drugs were allowed to thrive in the area, which would give the government reason to justify its ""
The federal grant will see the company secure $65 million in bank finance to proceed with its Pemulwuy Project.
