Doing it tough together: Melbourne's Olympic village community

Updated

Nearly 60 years after Melbourne hosted the Olympic Games, those living in the former athletes village still suffer the effects of a rushed development and public housing policies of the time.

It is on the fringes of Melbourne's affluent eastern suburbs that this small Olympic village community of West Heidelberg struggles with some of the nation's highest levels of crime and poverty.

But as resident Maxine tells kids on her village tours, there is no way she would ever leave.

Clare Rawlinson traces the village back to its glorious beginnings to find out how West Heidelberg came to be as it is today.

An unlikely past

Walking down Liberty Parade in West Heidelberg, there is no obvious evidence of the suburb's Olympic history.

Modest cottages and two-storey flats are bordered by overgrown verges and the occasional abandoned shopping trolley.

In these quiet streets, long-term resident Maxine gives a group of private school students a tour.

"Usually when it's quiet it means it's the calm before the storm," she tells the students.

"Something's going to happen in the next day or two — police doing their drug busts or someone got shot or murdered.

"I call this place a yin-yang; for every good there's a bad and for every bad there's a good."

Maxine is one of about 2,000 public housing residents living in the Olympic village today. Her house was first home to athletes from the United States, something she shares proudly on her tours.

She points out from memory the nationalities of several other houses as we walk through the streets, with each block dedicated to a different country.

Japan's athletes were relegated to the northern fringe of the village, less-welcome competitors in the 1956 Games so soon after the end of World War II.

The only place the Olympic history is really evident is on Alamein Road, where the coloured rings still hang proudly near the entrance to the former athletes dining hall.

Maxine runs the tours partly because of her pride for the village's history, but also, she says, to teach the students "what it's like to live in a poverty area".

After the Games ended, the athletes village was converted to public housing and used to accommodate slum dwellers from around Melbourne.

Social historian Robin Grow says there was a serious housing shortage at the time.

"This is where they proposed to house a lot of people," he said.

By the 1960s, the suburb had become a cluster of low socio-economic groups: returned soldiers from the Camp Pell slum (known then as Camp Hell), single mothers and homeless people.

'The Bronx' of Melbourne

The athletes blocks were never built for the long term and the swampy nature of the area has made them prone to cracking and mould.

In the 1970s, generational disadvantage among the community was compounded by the ageing housing stock, and in the 1975 Henderson inquiry into poverty, West Heidelberg was listed as a "district of special need".

"Certainly it was a fierce place to visit. There were gangs everywhere, lots of fights, brawls," Mr Grow said.

"It was the place we really didn't want to have to come play football against the locals."

In the late 1970s, Victoria's now-Children's Commissioner Bernie Geary was an inexperienced and optimistic youth worker, starting his first job in West Heidelberg.

"There was this notion of West Heidelberg being like the Bronx," he said.

Mr Geary remembers the moment reality hit him: early on in the job he made a home visit for one of the young people he was working with, to chat to the boy's parents about school attendance.

"I went up one evening in the semi darkness and walked in to his father hanging from his neck from a rafter," he said.

I had to work out if this was just a gig, something I'd have a dash at or stick with - and I'm so glad I stayed in it. Bernie Geary

"I had to run away and hide in my car. I was totally unprepared for it.

"I had to work out if this was just a gig, something I'd have a dash at or stick with — and I'm so glad I stayed in it."

Mr Geary joined forces with another youth worker, Jim Pasinas, and they developed the Banyule Community Health Service, which is now a central hub for the village, offering medical, legal and community services.

Like Mr Geary, Mr Pasinas said he was seduced by the village community and its warts-and-all, country-town feel.

But he lamented the entrenched disadvantage that so many residents still experience.

"In the future they should never build communities like this," he said.

"Communities are not homogenous, they need to build communities with different aspects to them, different socio-economic levels, where we can take the good with the bad.

"But in the '60s and '70s that was the way things were done. We didn't know any better."

Today, West Heidelberg is among the 5 per cent of most disadvantaged communities in Australia, according to the Victorian Council of Social Service.

It is among the 20 Australian suburbs with the highest rate of criminal convictions, and last year was reported as the suburb with the most burglaries in all of Melbourne.

The Tenants Union of Victoria says it sees a large number of public housing tenants in the village with chronic repair issues that are often left unattended by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Cracks, mould, cycles of poverty

Almost 40 years after Mr Geary began working in the village, his son Mick has ended up in a similar position.

Like his father, Mick Geary faces many of the same challenges that were present 40 years ago.

"We have incredible difficulties with people experiencing trauma on a daily basis because of the effects of poverty," he said.

"Then we have issues with the 'ageing stock' as the bureaucrats call it. We have pretty intense living situations — blocks built 60 years ago and not for the families of today."

Mick Geary says children regularly present at the Banyule Community Health Service with respiratory issues related to chronic mould in the athletes houses.

He regularly advocates to the DHHS on behalf of public housing residents in the village who are living in conditions unfit for children.

"The frustrating thing is you have to sometimes be the wheel that squeaks the loudest," he said.

Renewal in sight

Maxine came to the village 30 years ago as a runaway foster child. She was 16 years old and living on the streets in Frankston when she was offered public housing in West Heidelberg.

She was a self-professed "wild child"; a drug dealer who would fight her way out of trouble.

But when her long-term boyfriend died unexpectedly four years ago, she said she went into a deep depression, and then completely changed her lifestyle.

"I'm a community volunteer now. I sit on the safety committee, the housing working group, the WOW (Women of West Heidelberg) group, the Banyule community council and the farmers' market."

Maxine said the community was slowly reclaiming its Olympic pride and people were starting to realise how special their village is.

Even the postcode, which was once so stigmatised locals would change it on their job applications, is now printed on T-shirts reading "I love 3081".

DHHS said it was working to replace public housing in the village through the Olympia Renewal Project.

Over the course of 10 years, the department is upgrading original athletes blocks and moving residents into new public housing while also incorporating more private housing and migrant communities.

I'm telling you now this is a beautiful place. I love it. The only way you'd get me out of here is to carry me out in a box. Maxine, Olympic village resident

"The evidence shows us that where we have a more diverse community, the perception by the rest of the community changes," said DHHS director of housing Arthur Rogers.

"In terms of public housing properties it will look quite different [in 10 years' time] because we will have upgraded 600 of them.

"But also ... it will be a much more diverse community. This is a process of regeneration, where there is a great history and there is a great future."

Despite the challenges many living in the village face, Maxine says West Heidelberg is her home now.

"I'm sick and tired of everyone saying, 'West Heidelberg, oh what a scummy area'," she said.

"I'm telling you now, this is a beautiful place. I love it. The only way you'd get me out of here is to carry me out in a box."

For Maxine, the village represents a community of people who are doing it tough together.

And like the Olympic athletes who once shared their homes, the residents are determined to do their best at it.

This story is featured in the second season of 774 ABC Melbourne's Invisible History podcast.

Topics: poverty, human-interest, crime, unemployment, history, community-and-society, social-policy, sport, olympics-summer, heidelberg-west-3081, melbourne-3000

First posted