Where Are We?
The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre main office is located in the new Surry Hills Library and Community Centre at 405 Crown St. This new building is Sydney's most environmentally-friendly Community Centre, and our premises are above the a new Library. The $14 million design features an internal glass bio-filtration atrium where specially selected plants filter the air before it is naturally cooled underground and recirculated throughout the building. It sets a benchmark in environmentally sustainable design, showcasing cutting-edge innovations and demonstrating the City's commitment to environmentally responsible development.
What does the SHNC do?
- It provides a central focus for the Surry Hills Community
- It identifies needs in Surry Hills and tries to provide them at acceptable cost to everyone
- It works with Sydney City Council, and both NSW and Federal governments in meeting local community needs
- It is actively involved with organisations such as Crown St Public School, the Community Drug Action Team (CDAT), the Police Accountability Community Team (PACT), and the public housing Neighbourhood Advisory Board (NAB).
- It provides childcare services for families in Surry Hills (incl. Long Day Care and Playgroup, and out-of-school hours services [OOSH] for After school Care, and Vacation Care during school holidays)
- It provides multicultural services (e.g. English classes, cooking classes, excursions)
- It provides services targeted at marginalised or disadvantaged within the community
- It provides low cost space rental for community groups to meet
- It provides advocacy, information and referral services for all members of the community, especially those in need
- It runs monthly Surry Hills Markets and annual Surry Hills Festival
Where does our money come from?
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But, to pay our bills and provide essential community services, we have to supplement these resources by fund raising. |
Our major fund raising activities are the monthly Surry Hills Markets, and the annual Surry Hills Festival, supplemented by space rental and childcare surpluses. |
We are partly funded by the NSW Dept. of Community Services
We receive great support in the form of grants and services from
the Council of the City of SydneyLegally, we are:-
The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre Incorporated Association which is:-
- A non-profit, non-government community based information and resource association incorporated under the Fair Trading Act (NSW) and providing services to the Surry Hills community.
- Run on a community management model with the management committee being elected annually by members.
- Dedicated to the community of Surry Hills, postcode 2010, and bounded roughly by Elizabeth St, Cleveland St, South Dowling St, Flinders St and Wentworth Avenue.
- A tenant of the Surry Hills Library and Community Centre which is owned by the City of Sydney.
Our objectives and philosophies...
- We provide services which are tailored to particular needs of Surry Hills residents, particularly the disadvantaged.
- We gather and provide information that is relevant to the needs of the local residents, workers and the communities.
- We assist in the community development of Surry Hills by encouraging consultation, self-help programs and community education.
- We monitor the effects of social, physical, political and administrative decisions on the lives of the people and the social fabric of the local community and where appropriate support community action in respond to these decisions; i.e. we listen to people effected and encourage appropriate community response.
- We value all members of the community equally regardless of gender, age, race, religion, sexuality, politics, wealth and state of health. We will not accept intolerance of differences in the aforementioned. We require this of all our staff and volunteers and all our clients and service users.
What is the SHNC's History?
Read the article below by Enid Cook and learn how we got started . . .
Surry Hills from the late 60's and early 70s
Urban renewal and rejuvenation have once again become a subject for debate in the media
and in State and Local Government. Developers, Real Estate agents, banks and
residents are all involved. Surry Hills with its long and varied history as
the "Backyard of the City" is caught up again in conflicting values.
In the late 1960s - early 1970s the area was saved from the Slum Clearance Policy
destined for the whole of the Inner City from Paddington to Glebe and all
Inner City areas. Amid intense upheaval against the police, developers and Government, the
Builders Labourers Union led by Jack Munday placed Green Bans on all areas
where residents and others asked for assistance, stopping the ruthless
demolition of the Inner City. Surry Hills was spared the violence but was
subject to intimidation by some very ugly
"customers". Power to the People fuelled a period of energy and
imaginative early experiments with the concept of community.
Briefly, the post-war immigration policy changed Surry Hills from the old working
class area notorious for some of its colourful characters and fictionalised in
"Harp in the South" (Ruth Park, 1974), migrants formed 70% of the population
in addition to some Labour Party stalwarts and resident urbanites.
Lack of housing attracted young Australians returning from overseas - educated,
little money but through travel saw what city living was about.
Town planning of bombed out cities, social planning was not confined to suburban
living.
Resident Action in Surry Hills became Planning for People and directed attention
to the need to inform migrants and others that social issues were vital.
Government Departments needed to learn about these issues.
The Shopfront Information Service was established in Crown Street
near Cleveland Street. Volunteers with some assistance from the churches and
some basic Government help began what was to become Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre.
At the same time Activists split into various areas of interest e.g. traffic,
rat running motorists, dilapidated open spaces, Public Housing Department and
its attitude and for all, the welfare of children.
Parents and workers approached Activists about problems concerning child care.
Surry Hills had a long history of Welfare Services from churches and from philanthropic
organizations that had served right through to the war years. After the war attitudes
had changed and particularly for young people charity had become an obnoxious concept,
patronising and moralising superiority. Young women with children and child care
workers asked for assistance because any complaint or suggestion from them meant
exclusion, loss of a job, victimisation real and imagined.
The Women's Movement was gathering momentum so Activists wet about examining
practical ways of making Surry Hills a family place again.
Where to begin? Small beginnings that would offer some alternatives, but
most of all space to cater for an informal "get together" where parents and
minders could organize themselves in suitable space that provided more freedom
than a terrace. The Boys Brigade in Riley Street was originally built by the
Fairfax Newspaper Sydney Morning Herald for their newsboys and was not available
on a regular basis. The Anglican Church, former landlord of property in Surry Hills,
owned the Church Hall in Arthur Street but was not prepared to assist.
It was sold to John Singleton Advertising. All schools were jammed pack
with children some so young as four years of age - until the Education Department
demanded birth certificates. So there remained Doherty Hall part of the Library
building built in the 1950s and used for wedding receptions, modest affairs by
migrants as young people settled in Surry Hills in cheap terrace housing and started
families.
By the early 1970s the wedding receptions moved to more impressive venues and
after some Council inquiries the letting rate had fallen to three or four per year,
how after some trials around the area it seemed possible that a Play Group could begin.
This was completely unknown but by that splendid system of "telawoman" the
Skippitty Playgroup, fully insured, became a reality financed through the sale of
cast-offs, bits and pieces and goodwill from many women. The initiative shown by
the Community was to be the basis for Government funding for further development of
Child Care.
Still it was difficult to move through the inevitable blockage of red-tape
and often sheer bloody mindedness of men who believed "all women should be at
home looking after their own kids".
Encouraged by a splendid worker from Family Day Care, action was taken by two
sympathetic Labour Party members - two stalwart MEN who listened to the needs of a
changing society.
The basic concept of a Neighbourhood - Community Centre had been established in
Victoria (where much pioneering work has been done) and at last
the N.S.W. government saw that "there were votes in it" to quote a local alderman-councillor.
Resident Activists saw that the local Library, schools, Bay Health Centre and
personal assistance would help make the Immigration scheme work and encourage the
bay boomer generation to stay in, and come to the inner city where family
life was possible.
A group of residents took up the role of the Management Committee of Doherty Hall
and employed a graduate to pioneer the key role of the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre.
Two residents took themselves to Canberra to obtain a little finance from
Gough Whitlam's Government of happy memory and to explain to a public servant some
facts about putting ideas into practice at the community level.
He was a good listener!
* See history of Surry Hills C. Keating
Enid Cook, July 2003