When we're doing our drugs
it's all done in here, in the bedroom
needles are usually kept in a drawer
Drugs are a huge issue
we have an ice pandemic around here.
A terrible lot of domestic violence
people with mental health issues
You see people pissing, shitting in the lifts
in the fire escapes,
in the hallway,
i mean to see somebody scraped off the carpark
there's so many suicides that we give up counting
Housing want to keep it under wraps.
they don't want people to know
that people are suiciding in their buildings.
In any small community,
particularly where there are a lot of stressors
and mental health issues
of course you'll have some sad events
We attend suicides in the high rise precinct
We make a record when we atrend them.
and that data is not something that we would release.
certainly not.
This place needs to be ripped down
before it destroys more and more lives.
WE conduct undercover, overt, and covert operations.
there nearly every day of the week.
I've seen the transformation
of a really nice place to live
to, as tenants, what we call Alcatraz.
There's at least 5000 socially marginalised people
living on top of each other.
We have people sleeping in the stairwell
it smells like a toilet that hasn't been cleaned for maybe three years
This is mainly where they shoot up
because it's the only place that no one can see them
Harriet Wran's drug addiction
was reportedly out of control
on the night she visited a seedy Redfern housing commission unit
desperate for the drug ice.\
The daughter of former NSW Premier Neville Wran
has been arrested over a murder in Sydney.
A seedy rabbit warren of addiction
leading to the confrontation that
sent Harriet Wran to jail.
That case shone a spotlight on our building
because of the high profile
that Harriet Wran had.
This building had been neglected for years.
It shouldn't have taken a murder to do something about it cleaning it up.
The daughter of former NSW Premier Neville Wran
will stand trial for murder
after waiving her right to a committal hearing.
Just in the last few months we've spent more than
$3mill taxpayer dollars in the Redfern high rise towers
One of them has already had the new security arrangements put in.
WE're dead set keen to get the other three done as soon as possible.
Now it's a lot lot better.
And if you go down there,
generally the tenants these days
are looking pretty happy.
A couple of weeks ago
my house got robbed
my neighbour had a home invasion
he was stabbed three times.
Only last week
my front door was broken in to.
This is the stairwell that the young man overdosed in
and died in three weeks ago.
We're aware that there are residents that
use and deal drugs.
and we're also aware that some
drug dealers move in and take advantage
of vulnerable people.
by living in and operating out of their units.
I believe that some of the security measures
that have been put in place
the McKell building in particular
I won't ay made it impossible,
but made it ver difficult for that sort of thing to happen in that building.
We would be investing a similar amount of resources in the area
as we always have,
I don't think that it's decreased
We have a high visibility policing team
that conduct the operations
nearly every day of the week.
The elderly folk were too frightened to go out shopping.
We found people starving in their flat.
Espeiclaly after drug related murders that we had.
That's what prompted me to do something around here.
I get lonely at times,
just sitting herre by myself
music I think it one of the best medicines
just makes you forget all the other stuff
that's happening around the place.
and just go off into your own little dream world.
I've now been legally blind for ten years
I've lived here in McKell for 50 odd years.
Well, 12 years in the army,
I've been in McKelly building for 33 years.
It used to be a community.
Everyone new each other,
they spoke to each other,
you didn't have to worry about locking your door.
There was never any trouble here at all.
Then in the last 20 years it changed terribly.
to just a ghetto.
Being alone sometimes
that's what the older people are feeling like.
and that was the worst thing to happen around here, to me.
I live in the Lawson building
on the 16th floor with my partner.
We both are involved in the drug scene.
I'm a full time carer for my partner
who has 14 different disabilities.
How are you feeling? You want coffee?
when i turned around and said,
I was gay,
my mum and my stepfather
had my head kicked in to the gutter,
and kicked out of home,
and I got this place
Anzac Day three years ago.
Weekly we'll smoke pot or ice
do it here at home.
We inject once, twice, maybe three times weekly.
It's all done clean, safe,
needles, usually kept in a drawer,
i will sit on the bed,
partner will inject me,
people think drugs are fucked up and bad,
they're not good for you, I'll be honest there.