Photojournalist Rachel Mounsey follows Warumungu traditional owners in Jurnkkurakurr (Tennant Creek) as they tell stories of generational housing displacement — and their ambitious plan to reclaim their home.
Diane Stokes Nampin’s rusty-looking block is scattered with broken-down cars, a weather-worn donga and a tumbled-down tin shed.
Inside the shed Diane lives in, her body is slumped with grief in a plastic chair.
It was a 44-degree day when her six-year-old grandson died suddenly of heart complications related to rheumatic heart disease (RHD).
“It was his heart,” she says, her long fingers softly tapping her chest.
“I raised him from little … you know?”
“And now he’s gone.”
A 2020 University of Queensland study found RHD in Jurnkkurakurr’s Barkly Region mostly started via another infection, such as a sore throat or gum infection.
These infections were increased due to sleeping in close quarters and inadequate ventilation in houses.
The study found on average 10 people were living in a single Jurnkkurakurr home.
That same year, the Northern Territory government introduced the Healthy Homes program — an incentive aimed at repairing public housing to improve the health of its residents.
Specialist physician Simon Quilty says RHD in the NT is entirely linked to overcrowding.
“We know that if you fix overcrowded houses, rheumatic heart disease disappears,” he says.
“In Sydney, as a medical student, I never saw a case of rheumatic heart disease.
“I think that most doctors in Sydney would never see a kid with acute rheumatic fever anymore.”
The 2020 study’s co-author, Paul Memmott, says a lot of social housing in Central Australia is now around 40 years old and “hasn’t fared well in the harsh environment”.
“As well as things like broken fly screens and missing louvres, there are toilets, sinks and hot water systems that haven’t been repaired or replaced when they needed to be,” Professor Memmott says.
“When those sorts of facilities aren’t working for long periods of time, it can lead to preventable hygiene-related infections.”
Weeks later, as the final cars join the funeral possession, Diane sits under a wattle tree.
“Can you take me home,” she says, her head wrapped in a black mourning scarf.
“I can’t go out there and watch my grandson being buried.
“It hurts my heart too much.”
A house hot enough to melt a candle
Echoing in a bare brick home, Norman Frank Jupurrurla argues with a housing department spokesperson over the phone.
After the home’s third bed bug infestation, largely due to cracks in the older building, Norman says his family was moved out into temporary accommodation for renovations and insecticidal treatment.
Four weeks later, they returned home once spraying had occurred.
No renovations had been completed.
Norman says his family was moved again into a caravan park for repairs to be finished.
Looking around as he returns home for the second time, Norman points to a fan sitting on a deep freezer and his belongings still missing in storage.
“I don’t know what they’ve renovated in here,” he says.
He picks up a plastic chair and puts it under the one working fan.
His daughter Nina sips on a juice box in the 40C heat.
“A big empty house,” he says.
Norman’s family moved to Jurnkkurakurr in 2008 so he could start dialysis treatment — something he needs three times a week.
They ended up living in a tent on an outstation while they waited five years on the public housing queue.
In Jurnkkurakurr, general applicants could be left waiting eight to 10 years for a two-bedroom home, according to the territory government.
Priority applicants could face six to eight years.
And for every 44 people on that waitlist, there are only four houses available.
Remote Housing and Homelands Minister Selena Uibo told the ABC she couldn’t comment on Norman’s individual case due to tenancy confidentiality.
She said priority housing was decided through a process in which applicants first must provide supporting documentation.
“This is then assessed and determined whether the applicant fits the priority housing eligibility criteria,” she said.
Ms Uibo said her government had spent $20.4 million on Tennant Creek housing and visitor accommodation since 2016.
“Our investment has built and upgraded 210 homes, with an additional 33 homes underway and plans to build five new homes in Tennant Creek,” she said in a statement.
“The Territory Labor Government has already built and upgraded 463 across the wider Barkly electorate with close to 30 works currently underway.”
In March, federal and NT governments committed a further $4 billion over 10 years to improve housing, with aims to deliver up to 2,700 homes in the territory over its life span.
Those lucky enough to get public housing still have to contend with homes inappropriate for a changing climate.
Norman’s relative, Jimmy Frank Jupurrurla, says his house was so stifling last summer he couldn’t have a shower until midnight.
“Any time before midnight, that water was too hot,” he says.
Jimmy recounts how he once left a candle in another public home.
“I put it there and I came back a few days later and it was gone, melted,” he says.
“That’s when I realised how it really is, and how hot it’s gonna get.”
Jimmy’s experiment is backed up in a 2022 study co-authored by Norman and Dr Quilty.
It found poor design in remote houses created “heat caves”.
The result was homes that sucked up more energy and left users of pre-paid electricity cards facing frequent disconnections.
Chronic disease sufferers who needed to refrigerate medication were left “particularly vulnerable”.
It also confirmed what Norman and Dr Quilty had long known — the future of remote housing desperately needed to be re-envisaged.
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Letters that go nowhere
Mark Raymond has been a dialysis patient for 26 years.
He has been on the public housing wait list for 20 years.
His homeland Marlinja near Elliott is 280 kilometres north of Jurnkkurakurr.
Having to attend the Jurnkkurakurr dialysis clinic three times a week means he’s kept off-Country.
“I don’t know why people with renal aren’t priority number one on the waiting list,” Mark says.
Mark stays with family but has repeatedly asked for his own accommodation.
In a statement to the ABC, Ms Uibo said remote housing allocations were decided by the community through “Housing Reference Groups”.
She noted the government had built and upgraded 3,800 remote homes since 2016.
Dr Quilty says he’s written thousands of letters of support for priority patient housing that go nowhere.
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“The letters just sit there,” he says.
“I still keep writing them, but it makes no difference.
“People still wait for years.”
Patients without a fixed address can easily fall off the waiting list when letters asking applicants to renew their interest don’t reach them.
Living off-Country also makes it difficult to pass culture on to the next generation.
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“My dream site. You know, my sacred sites and all that,” Mark says.
“I have to teach my young generation after me.
“But I’m here. So it’s pretty hard, you know.
“If there was dialysis in Elliott it’d be a lot better for me to stay there.
“I’ll be staying in my homeland and coming down to treatment.”
Mark says he got tired of trying to remain on the queue.
“We tried, we tried,” he says.
Grandfather’s country
Norman knows the cost of living off-Country.
He likens it to a multi-generational displacement.
As of 2022, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates more than 35 per cent of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander households in the NT live in public housing.
“We didn’t know how to live in houses,” Norman says.
“My grandfather, he had chickens in his bedroom, they were laying eggs on the bed.
“You know what I think? I think it was the houses that bought the sickness.
“Before we had houses we never got sick.”
Norman’s Country, on former mission settlement Phillip Creek, is a stark contrast from the Besser block home.
Norman’s voice comes alive as he recites the Dreamtime stories of the nearby gum tree and water lilies.
He points out a white cockatoo, his totem jalitjilpa.
“We Warumungu people, when we talk about Country, we talk about our grandfather’s Country, our father’s father’s father’s Country,” he says.
“That’s my Country today and my kid’s homeland.”
Jimmy’s father took him away from Alice Springs and back to Country when Jimmy was a young boy.
“I got a lot to thank from my father,” Jimmy says.
“If he didn’t take us back to that old lifestyle, I wouldn’t have what I got today.
“That old fella taught us the importance of our culture and our Country.”
Dusk is falling as Jimmy takes a carload of kids through the scrub.
Teaching a new generation the importance of Country.
One of them, CC, is leaning her head out of the car’s window when she spots it.
“Roo!” she shouts loud enough for Jimmy to hear without startling the kangaroo.
A hush falls over the car as Jimmy slows down, hits reverse, and crawls to a stop.
The small girls huddle in the front seat while CC stays in the back.
All eyes are on the prize.
Just as his grandfather used to do, Jimmy takes a step back and watches his nephew prepare the roos.
“I know you can’t fix the problem but how do we make it easier?” Jimmy asks.
He says Country is a healing place if you lose track.
And when he thinks of his ideal version of home, it’s here.
“[You] feel free when you’re out here,” Jimmy says.
“I’ve got the ties to my grandfather’s Country.
“That’s how you build a home.”
Standing strong
Norman, Diane, Jimmy and Dr Quilty are all working on a way to bring Country and housing together — Wilya Janta.
Wilya Janta is a First Nations housing corporation creating culturally appropriate housing on Warumungu Country.
The project, which means standing strong, works with traditional owners, medical professionals, architects and local tradespeople to right the failure of remote housing in Jurnkkurakurr.
It bridges the gap between design and the knowledge of traditional owners to build a home that best fits the Country and its culture.
Artists’ impressions show how a deep verandah around the home protects the rooms from the harsh summer sun, while also ensuring occupants don’t bump into “poison cousins” (strict cultural avoidance relationships).
A large breezeway inside is lined in locally made mudbricks created from ant hills and spinifex.
Ramps, accessible bathrooms and wide doors make the home suitable for older family members, allowing them to stay on-Country.
The building will also belong to the community, as part of a Community Land Trust, ensuring long-term housing security.
“No one has ever built a house like this on traditional lands,” Norman says.
“It’s for Wumparrani people in the Wumparrani way.”
“I’ll show you where we’re gonna build the house,” Norman says over his shoulder in the car.
Wilya Janta’s first home is a particularly special one for Norman.
It’s his.
Norman’s wife, Serena, rests her arm on the open passenger window as the car winds to a stop on a hilltop.
Her eyes track through the ochre earth, seeing her husband’s vision.
A family home on this land, created from the country on which it stands.
A solution to centuries-long displacement.
Beside her, Norman’s gaze is similar.
“See Rachel, you see it’s the best view in all of Tennant Creek,” he says proudly.
As I look out, I see an expanse of red earth and rusty shrubs and a sky that never seems to end.
It just might be.
Credits
Words: Rachel Mounsey and Tessa Flemming
Photographer: Rachel Mounsey
Production: Tessa Flemming
The Great Crumbling Australian Dream
This photo essay is part of a larger photojournalism project examining Australia’s housing crisis.
The Great Crumbling Australian Dream is a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter.
The series was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation.
Oculi is a collective of Australian photographers that offers a visual narrative of contemporary life in Australia and beyond.
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