Yawuru housing project in Broome pays off

Written on the 25 April 2016

Danielle Mills had accepted she would never own her own home before her people, the Yawaru (sic) of Broome in Western Australia's far north, turned their hand to residential property development.

The 29-year-old, her daughter Rahizah, 14, and her son Lydon, 12, are settling into their newly built house in the suburb of Cable Beach a short walk from where Ms Mills grew up in public housing. Ms Mills, who works with traditional owners across Australia's far northwest as a project officer for the Kimberley Land Council, is a traditional owner, too. She is ­Yawuru, like Australia's newest senator, Pat Dodson.

Mr Dodson is a director of the Nyamba Buru Yawuru Aboriginal corporation that has developed unique pilot project in Ms Mills' home town, using $1.09 million of its own money and a $750,000 grant from the Barnett government's Royalties for Regions scheme.

The project has begun on a relatively small scale; Ms Mills and seven other homeowners have each bought a 50 per cent share in a property, signing up for a maximum debt of $265,000 each.

Nyamba Buru Yawuru will hold the title to the other half though Ms Mills intends to buy the rest of her house in the years ahead, an option open to all the new owners.

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Source: The Australian

Image: Danielle Mills with her children Rahizah, left, and Lydon at their new home at Cable Beach in Broome. Picture: Colin Murty, The Australian