Politics

The Last Resident Of The Iconic Sirius Building Has Moved Out. She Didn’t Want To Go.

"Nearly everyone I know has been forced to leave the city. It's terrible."

by Sam Langford  1 February 2018
myra demetriou sirius

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After a long fight against a government determined to dismantle inner-city public housing, today’s the day: Myra Demetriou, the last resident of Sydney’s iconic Sirius Building, has left the building.

The Sirius Building, if you’re just catching up, is a building purpose-built for inner-city public and affordable housing. For years, it’s served that purpose really well, allowing working class and welfare-dependent Sydneysiders to live close to the city, jobs and services. That is, until the NSW government decided it would make some fast cash by just selling the thing, and repeatedly refused to heritage list the building despite huge public campaigns to save it.

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In preparation to sell the building, the government has spent the past few years slowly moving its residents into alternative accommodation. Many put up a fight, but 91-year-old Myra Demetriou stuck it out the longest. She had many good reasons to refuse to leave: she’s legally blind and uses a walking frame, so she’s reliant on a familiar area. Living alone, she cherished her community and neighbours.

She loved her home, she loved The Rocks, and she loved public housing, so she fought for it. Myra has spent the past year and a bit on the front lines of the campaign to save Sirius. Despite her age, she’s attended court cases and protests, done scores of media interviews, and invited thousands of people into her home on tours aimed at showcasing the value of the Sirius Building.

If you’ve been in Circular Quay at night and looked up to see the letters S.O.S. lit up in red neon, then you’ve seen her apartment window (the S.O.S. stands for “Save Our Sirius”, and she refused to take it down despite government requests). She has, quite literally, spent every night in recent memory literally illuminating the campaign to save the building.

But as the government pressed on with its sale plans, resistance became harder. As Myra recently told the World Monuments Fund, “nearly everyone I know has been forced to leave the city. It’s terrible.” Eventually, the government made her an offer of new accommodation she couldn’t refuse, and today she departed Sirius for good.

Last weekend, the building’s supporters came together to wish her farewell, and commit to continuing to fight for inner-city public housing to stay put. It’s a fight Myra’s still very much invested in — as she told the World Monuments Fund “there has to be room in the city for everyone. Nobody wants a city just for rich people. Public housing gives people with less money a chance to live close to jobs and people they have known.”

“I will continue to fight. Are we to be the only major city in the world without public housing? It’s ridiculous. We should have a say in what sort of city we are living in. The government has not been very good at it. They forget and they don’t listen. We have to keep telling them.”

She’s right, and she’ll be missed. And while the building is now empty, the fight to save it will go on. At Myra’s farewell on the weekend, the Save Our Sirius campaign announced that if it comes to it, they’ll try to purchase the building to save it from destruction.

That’ll be tough, given that the government’s hoping to secure around $100 million for it, but at very least they’re willing to give it a crack. That’s more than can be said for the state.

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Feature image by John Dunn, supplied