Standing here on Dight Street, there is an intangible feeling; the air is thick with story and history. The Dight Street Housing Estate, now looking a little shabby, was one of Melbourne’s first public housing estates. After demolition of cottages near Johnston and Hoddle Streets, The Housing Commission of Victoria built some 300 walk up flats, one you can see in the picture, now sadly replaced by what you see before you. It began as a modernist’s dream, fresh new architecture, working sewerage and running drinking water, this estate was heaven for the disadvantaged families that had been ousted from the slums during the Slum Abolition Movement and who had been lucky enough to be granted an apartment. But this estate, didn’t materialise in the 1930s when Albert Dunstan first formed the housing Commission of Victoria, it didn’t happen in 40’s either, it wasn’t until the1950’s that this public housing was finally built, some 20 years later. World War II had put building and planning on hold for many years, which posed a problem for the Housing Commission who not only had people from the demolished slums needing housing but also returned soldiers. But, the Housing Commission’s wasn’t to be discouraged. During those lost years they were able acquire cheap land around Melbourne’s fringes and inner city and begin the massive project of public housing building. Although off to a slow start In the 1940s Pre-cast concrete technologies were employed for the first time ever in Australia and Dunstan and Oswald’s dream was coming to fruition. Cheap housing for the disadvantaged was about to fill the empty land and house thousands of people.
