Meet Anab Mohamud, A Single Mum, And The First Councillor To Live In Public Housing
If that weren't cool enough, she also says she's the second sub-Saharan African to be elected to any level of government in Australia.
Newly minted Greens councillor Anab Mohamud sees me looking over her shoulder at a man walking past us in the Fitzroy public housing park off Gertrude Street.
She turns, recognises him and waves. He enthusiastically waves back and shouts something unintelligible over the wind. I ask if she knows him.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s community, yeah,” Ms Mohamud says as she waves away the question. Without missing a beat she launches back into her analysis of why it’s hard to be Black and Muslim in Australia and why she wanted to run for the Yarra Council in Melbourne.
“Coming to Australia and the Western world, people of colour and minorities have a lot of struggles, you know what I mean?” she says. “So that’s another reason why I joined the council, to kind of break that stigma that people have about us.
“If we’re in the local government at all, one of us or two or three, at least people will understand.
“They have this ignorance but I don’t blame them. It’s what the media fed them. So when they see someone like me doing things like this as an example, maybe it might change their thought process.”
The interaction sums up who Ms Mohamud is, and what she wants to do with her newly won council seat.
The single mother lives in the Fitzroy public housing towers, and is a Black Muslim from Somalia who came here 20 years ago as a refugee. She never finished high school and left home when she was 17, rebelling against her conservative parents. She didn’t talk about them much.
With Ms Mohamud’s place on the first Greens-majority council in Australia, she wants to set an example for other Africans so they feel like they can join the public sphere. There have been very few others like her.
She also wants to be an advocate for her tight-knit public housing community, and for them to finally see the power of representation. Ms Mohumad says she’s well known in the Fitzroy blocks. Over the course of the interview we’re momentarily interrupted two more times by residents passing by and waving hello.
“I know the whole community,” she says. “Basically, I know everyone so when I’m walking down it’s like hello, hi, and we talk about things people talk about issues.
“So that’s how I will engage with them.”
She believes she’s the first public housing resident to be elected to any level of government and the second sub-Saharan African.
Ms Mohamud in the park beneath the towers. Photo: Jim Malo
A big issue for the tenants there is the quality of the flats. Ms Mohamud says they’re not up to scratch and haven’t been for years.
“They have to find a solution for it and how we could do that is by going to the councillors, not as one person or two people but as a group, hundreds and hundreds of people complaining about the same issue.
“Then I think the local government will have no reason but to listen to what the community wants and needs.”
Ms Mohamud’s community is core to who she is. She says even with a councillor’s salary, she’ll stay in the towers. She and her seven-year-old daughter don’t want to leave behind their big chosen family.
“I have the neighbours next door downstairs here the community, you know, sometimes when I’m busy too, she plays outside and the community keeps an eye on her if anything happens,” Ms Mohamud said. “They keep me informed so I don’t feel like I have to be here when she wants to be outside. I’m gonna be busy. I don’t feel like I have to come downstairs to watch her in the park because even though she’s seven years old, she has a whole community watching her.”
Ms Mohamud said she thinks values like hers are missing from politicians today, and she won’t be stopping at local government.
“I always used to say this to a lot of people growing up, that I want to be the Prime Minister one day we laughed about it,” she says, laughing. “Now being on the council, all my friends are like: ‘What?! We should have listened to you! You always said you wanted to do this!’
“I have higher ambitions to make a change. I think greed is how we’re losing our humanity and I want to be the one who changes that.
“At least I know I’m not there to go to take power. I want to actually help the people and I want to help my country.
“I want to help the people that are feeling worthless or feel like their voices don’t matter.”
Jim Malo is a journalist with an interest in politics and social justice. He tweets at @thejimmalo.