1960

Contract let for the construction of the first 18 flats at Keble Court, Glenlyon Road, East Brunswick

^[1]

1972

The BSL purchased two properties in Fitzroy in an attempt to stop people being forced out of inner areas.  One was a small block of 10 flats on the corner of Fitzroy and Palmer Streets (later known as the Palmer Street flats), close to the Coolibah.  Built for commercial purposes about 1968 it provided excellent accommodation for elderly people living on the pension and was eligible for the $2 for $1 subsidy under the Aged Persons Homes Act.  This was the first stage of a planned development in the inner suburbs, to include a 40-bed hostel adjoining these flats (later to be known as Sumner House) and a similar project on land recently acquired in Gold Street, Clifton Hill (later known as Sambell Lodge), overlooking the Darling Gardens. ^[2]

The second property purchased consisted of three terrace apartment houses in historic Glass Terrace in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, which had provided rooming house accommodation for 20 people for 40 or 50 years.  Well and sympathetically run, the well-disposed owner Mrs Du Poula offered it to the BSL "at a very generous price" and purchased as a means of retaining rooms which would otherwise have been converted to private dwellings.  The project was not subsidised by the Government, so no minimum age limit applied to the residents who were selected on their needs such as people not of pensionable age such as invalids and single itinerant people. ^[3] A_place_of_their_own_1973-6.pdf