Our work takes place on Darug & Gungungurra Country. We pay our respects to the Elders in our community who continue to fight for the health and wellbeing of Country and Community. Always Was, Always Will be Aboriginal Land.
Stories are important to our work. The story of Darug and Gundungurra Elder Aunty Carol Cooper is at the heart of our work and should be the starting point, we believe, for how we address the housing crisis. Aunty Carol like other Darug & Gundungurra peoples have experienced dispossession of their homelands, racism and segregation but have also been displaced numerous times on their own Country. The family have had to move from house to house as the racetrack was built or as the roads were widened. This experience sits at the heart of long held vision for housing for her and her community.
Like her, Aunty Pip Smith and Aunty Kerrie Miller, both members of Walanmarra Artist and Friends who passed away in recent years, have stories that inform our work too. Aunty Pip’s artwork and poem are expressions of her lived experience and tells us of the critical importance of housing to our health and wellbeing.
Aunty Kerrie Miller attributes her lived experience of housing precarity as the foundation for her efforts and will to get the Community Land Trust established, knowing too well how housing is fundumental to health and wellebing.
With these stories and histories in mind, the progress of the Community Land Trust has been undertaken in a careful and considered way. Moving at the speed of trust as we call it and in line with Cultural Protocol is critical but takes time but when done right is enriching and empowering for everyone.
How We Began
Grassroots
We convened our first online meeting with Aunty Carol Cooper and Aunty Jacinta Tobin, joined by 20 community members, in 2021. We initially came together with a focus on women's housing but with Aunty Carol’s leadership we expanded our focus to a whole of community approach to housing. Aunty Jacinta underscored the essential role of self-determination and the right of her people to live and move across their Country, shaping our core values.
Community forums and an Australian first in housing policy
In 2022 we formed a committee to progress the establishment of a Community Land Trust and hosted a series of housing forums and public meetings to discuss the crisis and what solutions were available to us. These events built literacy and strong partnerships between the community, local organisations concerned about the housing crisis, local MP’s and Councilors.Blue Mountains Community Land Trust hosted a public forum and documentary film screening in 2022 with Walanmarra Artists & Friends
Working with Government and Community Partners
In 2022 & 2023 we met with local strategic planners and created an inter-agency network to tackle the housing crisis. We advocated to all levels of Government including submissions to key local policy platforms. Our advocacy was influenctial in some key inovations to the Blue Mountains City Council’s Housing Affordability Policy including, in an Australian first for Local Government:- the inclusiong of Darug and Gundungura housing needs as a priority;
- Aboriginal Community Housing Providers to enable Culturally safe and appropraite housing.
- A definition of affordability measured as 30% of household income and affordability that is affordable “into perpetuity”, meaning, forever.
- And the inclusiong of Community Land Trusts as a vehicle for affodordable housing.
Meeting with Council’s Strategic Planning Team. From Left: Prof. Louise Crabtree-Hayes, Aunty Carol Cooper, Genevieve Murray, Prof. Peter Phibbs
Sydney University Partnership
In 2023 we ran a series of co-design workshops with University of Sydney Masters of Architecture students to develop a masterplan for the CLT and understand community needs and how we could facilitate this through the Community Land Trust model. The students walked Country with Elders, Aunty Jacinta Tobin & Aunty Carol Cooper and created a Countermap of Country. They undertook a needs analyses and did a detailed assessment of available surplus land that could be repurposed for the Community Land Trust.Co-Design Workshops:
- Building literacy in the community of what CLT’s could do & how
- Created a framework for how BMCLT could move forward
- Helped us understand how a CLT could be integrated into the existing fabric of the Blue Mountains using surplus land.
A student project by Haziq Ashari for cluster housing co-located with local food production and bush food garden.
Collaboration with Walanmarra
In 2022 we began a collaboration with Walanmarra Artists & Friends, a First Nations women’s art collective who were deeply concerned about the housing crisis. They invited us to speak at Shelter, an exhibition of works by local artists about their experience of housing precarity. Aunty Pip Smith and Aunty Kerrie Miller, members of Walanmarra, were both artists in this exhibition and became an important influence in our formation and direction. They are both Aboriginal women of the stolen generation who worked tirelessly to fight for better housing for their community and who were key members of the BMCLT. They both attribute their lifelong experience of housing precarity as the key contributor to their chronic health conditions. Aunty Pip’s artwork, ‘Another Number, Another Statistic’ (2022) about feeling like just another number, another statistic when dealing with the housing system, and Aunty Kerrie’s Poem ‘Have you Ever’ will form the preamble to our constitution as decided by the community. Aunty Pip passed away in 2023 and Aunty Kerrie Miller in 2024. Both women were influential members of the Community Land Trust who pushed us towards land justice, housing justice and grounded us in a strengths based approach to advocacy and who continue to drive the direction of our organisation. We dedicate our work to them and their families and loved ones.
Research partners: Strategy & Impact
At the end of 2023 we entered into an historic funding and research partnership with RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research and secured a Strategic Impact Fund. The funding enabled us to undertake Indigenous led governance training led by Lisa WIlliams and Aunty Norma Ingram from Willing Creative for our committee and a series of On-Country yarns led by Aunty Carol in The Gully.From left (Front Row): Auntie Kerrie Miller, Aunty Bev Eaton, Aunty Carol Cooper, Anastasia Vickers, Aunty Norma Ingram
From left (Back Row): Claudia Roosen, Lu Forsberg, Annabel Murray, RMIT’s Prof. Libby Porter, Aisha Slee, Genevieve Murray, Sue Wildman, RMIT’s Priya Kunjun, WSU’s Prof. Louise Crabtree-Hayes,
The governance training enabled us to progress as an organisation from a strengths based approach and with a substantial resource to inform our governance and process going forward. The On-Country yarns led to broader inclusion of First Nations community members concerned about the housing crisis and led to us making important decisions about our constitution and the direction of our organisation.
Advocacy & Impact
In 2024 the community decided that the housing crisis was impacting the community and we needed our voices heard. Local organisations banded together and marched on the streets of Katoomba demanding action from all levels of government. The action had national coverage on the ABC National News and featured our CLT committee member Julie Nelson.The protest was led by the Blue Gums Choir singing their song SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. The song was written by a group of Blue Mountains locals who came together to give voice to their concerns about the local housing crisis. “A series of song writing and singing workshops were run by volunteers to bring people together and empower them through producing a song which they hope will continue to spread the message and raise awareness about the devastating impacts of housing insecurity and homelessness. This film is dedicated to the memory of Pippa Smith (1971 – 2023).
Somewhere to Live by The Blue Gums Choir ©(2023) All Rights Reserved. Video Copyright Brazen Films (Aus)2023 Music Copyright Lulu Malm (2023)