Our Community Heart
Saving Box Hill's Neighbourhood Houses.
Across the Box Hill electorate, our Neighbourhood Houses are not a luxury — they are the connective tissue of our community. They are where new migrants learn English, where carers find support, where isolated seniors find friendship, and where women in crisis find their first safe conversation. When the State Government cut funding, they didn't just cut a budget line. They cut people off.
The houses we're fighting for.
Across the Box Hill electorate, seven Neighbourhood Houses form a quiet but vital network of belonging — from a cottage on Clota Avenue to the Town Hall Hub on Bank Street, from Blackburn North to Burwood. Each one is different. Every one matters.
In the heart of Box Hill, Clota Cottage Neighbourhood House (31 Clota Avenue) runs English and Mandarin classes side by side, with a community garden and kitchen, Chinese-speaking social groups (中文社区活动), and My Aged Care social programs that keep older neighbours from disappearing into isolation. A short walk away at the Town Hall Hub on Bank Street, the Louise Multicultural Community Centre brings together participants from more than twenty countries — beginner and advanced English, Mandarin classes, the New Arrivals Multicultural Friendship Group, and the Jasmine Dance Group. It is the place that turns "multicultural Box Hill" from a slogan into a Tuesday-morning timetable.
South of Whitehorse Road, Box Hill South Neighbourhood House (47 Kitchener Street) is where a retired tradie, a new mum and a recent migrant can all find a reason to walk through the same door — playgroups, a German playgroup, Japanese children's activities, Italian classes, mobile phone workshops, belly dancing and a slow walkers group all share the calendar.
North of the Eastern Freeway, Kerrimuir Neighbourhood House (57 Linda Avenue, Box Hill North) is the kind of place where people come for a book club and stay for the community lunch — adult education, over-50s classes, and support groups for people living with disability.
Over the freeway in Blackburn North, Blackburn North Neighbourhood House (109 Koonung Road — the old Koonung Cottage) runs grandparents' playgroups, the Koonung Woodturners Guild, watercolour and sketching classes, and one-on-one smartphone tuition. It is a house built around the rhythms of an ageing suburb that still wants to learn.
In Blackburn South, the Avenue Neighbourhood House @ Eley (87 Eley Road) does some of the most serious adult-education work in the electorate — Certificates in General Education for Adults, literacy classes, dedicated classes for people with intellectual disabilities, and a training café open every Friday during term. Mah-jong and a poetry group sit alongside pathways back into work and study.
At the southern edge of the electorate, Burwood Neighbourhood House (1 Church Street) sits where Whitehorse meets Boroondara and Monash — a house with a big backyard, a cubby and a bike track that has been drawing playgroups for decades. Mother's groups, a Japanese playgroup and the International Country Adoption Playgroup share its weekdays; lone-parent support groups, monthly community roast lunches and Boroondara Toastmasters share its evenings. It is a reminder that "community" in our seat does not stop at a council boundary.
Between them, these seven houses deliver English language classes in English and Mandarin, carers and disability support groups, financial literacy programs, playgroups, health and wellbeing classes, and warm referrals to family violence and crisis services. They are not back-office programs. They are front-line community infrastructure.
The funding crisis.
Neighbourhood Houses Victoria has shown that 200 of the state's 400+ houses are running at a loss. The peak body asked for $11.7 million per year — a 25% increase — to prevent widespread closures. The State Government declined that request in the 2026 budget. Heena is calling for that funding to be restored in full.
What Heena will fight for.
- Restore the 25% core funding increase requested by Neighbourhood Houses Victoria — flowing to every house in the electorate, not just the named three.
- Guarantee minimum funded hours for each house coordinator position — so houses don't lose their most experienced staff to short-term contracts.
- List all seven Neighbourhood Houses — Clota Cottage, Louise Multicultural Community Centre, Box Hill South, Kerrimuir, Blackburn North, Avenue @ Eley, and Burwood — as protected community assets in local planning schemes.
- Create a direct reporting line between Neighbourhood Houses and the Department for Social Policy, so funding decisions are made with the houses, not for them.
- Pilot a Women's Connection Hub at Clota Cottage, with bilingual outreach extending to Louise Multicultural Community Centre and Box Hill South — three doors in the heart of the electorate for women who need a first safe conversation.