Burnayi Lurnayi: Bendigo development aims to provide safe homes for Aboriginal women | Australia news
Traditional owners have partnered with community housing providers in central Victoria to build a new housing project aimed at addressing the high rates of homelessness faced by Aboriginal women.
The development, named Burnayi Lurnayi, meaning “young women” in Dja Dja Wurrung language, is being built in the Bendigo suburb of Flora Hill, in a partnership between the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation (Djarra) and community housing organisation YWCA.
YWCA previously ran a community centre on the Flora Hill site. Its chief executive, Michelle Phillips, says the name was chosen to reflect the intent to develop housing that meets the needs of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, through a culturally safe and gender-responsive design framework.
“We can build as much housing as we want but, if it is not built for women’s needs and responsive for gender, I don’t see how we’re going to solve the housing crisis,” Phillips said.
“Everything that we do on our builds now … we’re actually looking at how we design and build for women so their needs are catered for.”
The development is due to be completed in 2026 and will deliver 35 new homes, with at least half to be allocated to First Nations women.
The rental vacancy rate in Greater Bendigo is just 2.3%, which includes properties at all price points. According to the 2024 national Rental Affordability Index, the average weekly rent in regional Victoria is $450 and regional centres such as Bendigo have become more unaffordable.
There were more than 50,000 new applications for public housing in Victoria as of June 2024, according to the Victorian public housing register. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that 60% of applicants on social housing waitlists across Australia identify as female, and 16% as Indigenous.
Rodney Carter, the CEO of Djarra, says the lack of affordable housing locally makes it difficult for First Nations women to stay on ancestral lands.
“A priority for DJAARA is to support Dja Dja Wurrung People to live on Country,” Carter said. “But a lack of affordable housing is a big barrier. We are currently exploring how DJAARA can make a valuable contribution in the provision of housing.”
Dja Dja Wurrung consultation on Burnayi Lurnayi was partially driven by the corporation’s 2013 recognition and settlement agreement with the State of Victoria, which a spokesperson for Djarra said acknowledged their right to have input on the project when YWCA applied to develop the site. This led to the formation of a wartaka, or advisory group, of Dja Dja Wurrung women who contributed to the initial planning of the project, giving guidance on how they wanted certain aspects of the build such as common areas and apartment layouts to be designed.
Phillips says the partnership with Djarra started with a phone call and was born out of a joint understanding of the need for First Nations women’s housing.
“There were a lot of workshops held and I think what was important was the first one was actually held on the land to talk about what was important for them,” she said.
“The team did a lot of work talking about the yarning circles, the gathering spaces, to enable that healing connection to the land. In the future there are plans for community planting days with Djarra. Really making sure that we do have that for First Nations women, that there is that connection for them.”
Phillips says the project will also be built in accordance with YWCA’s existing framework for gender responsive housing.
“When we look at it from our side, it is around what do women need and what women are telling us that they need,” she said.
The $19m project is being partially funded through the Victorian state government’s $5.3bn big housing build policy, which aims to deliver 12,000 homes for social and affordable housing across the state, with $1.25bn set aside for regional Victoria. YWCA is also investing $6m, with the rest to come from the Lord Mayors’ Charitable Foundation.
The Victorian government has also announced a draft target of building 37,500 more new homes in the Greater Bendigo City Council area by 2051, as part of a plan to build 2.24m new homes statewide.
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