CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
A childhood spent in public housing can be tough, even for those kids lucky enough to be able to spend the whole time in one home.
With the continued streamlining of social services, and a lack of support for low socio-economic and welfare-dependant families across the country, life in the blocks can be hard wherever you are.
That’s why the local kids in the inner-Betoota public housing complex known as Rolex Court are cheering today.
After decades of failed promises, the government has finally come through and paid the $3,000 necessary to build a playground next to the car park in the 12-story government tower they call home.
The new playground comes complete with a slide, and a random little cubby hut decorated with animal characters that are visually similar to outdated but once-popular cartoons.
Despite not even having the rotating letter things or one of those wombat spring-seats, the new play area in Betoota’s Rolex Court provides an outlet for the imagination and pent up energy of the 300 kids that live upstairs.
“Woohoo” says one welfare-dependant six-year-old, Jason, who’s mum’s payments have been cut because she failed one of the newly trialed urine tests after self-medicating against the ongoing trauma of her own childhood with marijuana.
“The government even let us draw on hopscotch squares with chalk”
“The fake grass is just like concrete so it was easy as!”
