NJA Book 2024 Soft Copy - Flipbook - Page 14
Pemulwuy Business Hub
The Pemulwuy Business Hub is located on
Eveleigh Street, Redfern, an inner-city suburb
of Sydney, which is Gadigal land belonging
to the Eora Nation. The land on which it is
sited is owned by the Aboriginal Housing
Company (AHC) and has a long and turbulent
history dating to the early 1970’s.
At the time local landlords were evicting
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tenants.
The AHC, with the assistance of a grant from
the Whitlam Government, acquired Victorian
terraced dwellings in the locality to secure
low-cost housing for its community. Its final
form was a land holding of approximately
6750sm bounded by Eveleigh, Caroline,
Louis and Vine Street and acquired an
identity as an inner city Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander community and destination for
its broader rural family. It became known as
“The Block”
What unfolded over subsequent decades is a
story of conflict and social disintegration that
occurred in the long shadow of colonialism
and dispossession, in a physical environment
of disintegrating Victorian building stock.
The management of the AHC understood
what needed to be done to restore the
community and to establish a constructive
and inclusive relationship with the broader
Sydney. Realising this vision, which has been
named Pemulwuy, has been a very tough and
gruelling process that has taken decades.
