Proceeds from the sale of 180 properties passed the $570 million mark in May and a final 11 lots are due to be sold this year, including the historic apartment building Sirius. Property NSW chief executive Brett Newman said that, while the government would not give final sales targets or estimates, the proceeds would be more than $600 million. "Initial estimates of $500 million have already been achieved, predominantly due to the strong residential property market over the past three to four years," Mr Newman said. Money raised from the Millers Point sales has been used to build 936 social housing units in areas such as south-west Sydney, Sutherland shire and Wollongong, while another 256 units are under construction. "Proceeds from the remaining properties will be dedicated to social housing," the Department of Finance said in a statement.

But the program has uprooted inner-city residents, moving them on from homes that have sometimes been held in the family for generations. Ms Parlow, who launched legal action last year against her eviction, moved in 1976 to a mid-19th century four-storey terrace in Lower Fort Street. A nurse turned "social and environmental artist", she was initially attracted to the area by community and union fights against evictions in the early 1970s. She soon took over as manager of the boarding house terrace at the address and raised her daughter, Arana, as a single mother in the home. "The place was in extreme disrepair when I moved in," Ms Parslow, 77, told the Herald last year. "I have put my life into caring for this property and I thought I'd die here."

Properties in the area behind the Walsh Bay finger wharves were owned by the Maritime Services Board and originally leased to wharf workers and their families, who often sub-let them. Loading Ms Parslow's lawyers argued that it had been a "common assumption" of their client and the Maritime Services Board that she could stay as a tenant for life so long as she paid rent and followed the terms of the lease. The lawyers argued further that Ms Parslow had spent money and time improving and repairing the property on that assumption. But in a judgment handed down on Thursday, Justice Parker found she had not been given an entitlement to live out her life in Lower Fort Street, either by the Maritime Services Board or the Housing Corporation that took over the property.