Housing commission homes in the Sydney suburb of Millers Point are again under threat of a sell-off, as Housing NSW refuses repairs on homes to drive residents out.

In 2008, when the government sold the first bundle of properties in the area, it said the sales were a “one off”. Two years later, it was selling more.

Now the community is convinced that another sell-off is imminent. Residents have gathered in their hundreds at meetings to plan the fight back.

Graham was on the waiting list for 14 years before moving into public housing at Millers Point about three years ago. Since then, she has fought constantly to make the place fit to live in. “When I moved into the flat, everything was broken. Holes in the walls. The toilet was the most horrific. The first day I moved in, I ended up in the emergency ward. This lovely looking toilet wasn’t attached to the floor, wasn’t attached to the back wall. The inlet was partially snapped, so they turned off the water to hide the leaking. The first time I sat on it I went flying off”, she said.

 “I couldn’t lock the house at all. You could get in via the balcony because the doors had been ripped off previously and were hanging there. You could get into the place without a key.”

When Graham complained, rather than repairing her home, Housing NSW threatened her with eviction.

“They bring in barristers, and they have a very well funded legal department ... They spent hundreds of dollars investigating my toilet, when they could have just replaced it when I moved in.”

“I went 18 months without a working toilet. I was bucket flushing … You have no idea how embarrassing it was having friends come over and having to send them to the pub or the ambulant toilet over near the bus terminal.”

Graham’s story will be familiar to tenants in Milers Point, but many of the area’s elderly residents are afraid that if they complain they will be evicted. “There is a lot of fear about standing up to them … Most people don’t go through with it. Most people back off”, said Graham.

Millers Point has been home to dock workers and their families for well over a hundred years. But the area’s proximity to the city has always made it attractive to developers. Already 29 houses have been sold on 99-year leases, most of which fetched a million dollars or more.

“It’s very expensive real estate here. So of course the opportunists, the developers want to move in. They want to gentrify the area”, said resident Beverly Sutton, 73.

Like hundreds of others, Sutton is angry and won’t give up her home easily. Her family connection to Millers Point is long. Her grandfather was a seaman and her father a wharf labourer. She has lived in the area her entire life.

“I’ve been fighting for this area for 45 years, starting with Jack Mundey and the green bans and the fight for the Rocks”, she said. “I’m in touch with Jack on a regular basis. He is very supportive of the community staying here.”

Jack Mundey led the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation in the 1970s when it imposed green bans at the Rocks and Millers Point to save working class housing. The current campaign is a continuation of that same fight.