For the past 45 years Raymond Reading has lived in a tiny, dark, two-room unit in a rundown boarding house in the blue-chip Sydney suburb of Paddington, and he never imagined leaving. Until, that is, he was told a consortium of developers had bought his building and the ones next door, and now plans to tear them apart and replace each with a grand luxury house. (From left) Simon Durac, Brian Lea, Ray Reading and Stephen Deer.
Credit: Nick Moir The 75-year-old triple stroke and double heart attack survivor’s genial grin turns into a scowl. “But they’re not going to be able to get rid of me easily,” he vows. “I’ve got my stick here” – he waves his walking stick in the air – “to defend myself.
They’ll have to take me out in handcuffs.” His mates in the boarding house mutter their agreement. Simon Durac, 80, has lived here 55 years, Brian Lea, 75, for 26 years, and Stephen Deer, 69, the newbie at just 10 years.
All pay between $150 and $200 a week. “We were devastated to hear about this,” says Deer, standing with his neighbours in a line outside one of the communal front doors on Selwyn Street, like guards preparing to repel the enemy. “What are we supposed to do, where would we go? There’s no affordable housing anywhere.
We’d be thrown out onto the streets, and sleeping at Central Station or under the arches.” This row of two- and three-level boarding houses, built as cheap housing after World War I for returning soldiers and today home to 32 .