Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC)


As we all know there is a big housing crisis in Melbourne. It's
becoming increasingly difficult to find an affordable place to live
anywhere near the inner-city. Students in particular are doing it tough,
the pressures of having to study and work more and more because of
rising rent (and food) prices is too much for many.

Studies done at Melbourne uni show that as many as 1000 students there could
be classified as homeless. Many more are eligible for public housing.
In this climate it's clear that we need to do something to claim our
right to affordable housing.
Drawing inspiration from STUCCO- the affordable student housing co-op in
Sydney which started as a squat and has been running for over 15 years-
and from the Keppel st project of early 2006 where students occupied a
state government building in the hope of creating a student housing
co-op; we think the time is ripe to get active and build solutions.
We've already scoped out a few empties (possible sites), have been doing a
lot of research and it looks like there's definitely a few ways forward.
What needs to happen now is the formation of strong collective ready to
take up this project.