In 1973 the AHC formed in direct response to the widespread discrimination Aboriginal people experienced in the private rental market. The lack of affordable housing for Redfern's increasing Aboriginal population and general racial discrimination in the private housing market resulted in a group squatting in empty terraces in Louis Street Redfern, in the latter months of 1972. In November that year, police arrested 15 squatters. They were released in the care of Father Ted Kennedy at St Vincent’s Church in Redfern. Fr Kennedy housed the goomies in the church hall, but when the number of homeless people living in the church grew to over 50 South Sydney Council exerted great pressure on Fr Kennedy to evict them.
Fr Ted Kennedy teamed up with Aboriginal leaders including Bob Bellear and his brother Sol. The Builder Labourers Federation imposed a green ban on the Louis Street site prohibiting the owner from demolishing and redeveloping the houses.
The squatters organised themselves and formed The Aboriginal Housing Company. A grant of $530,000 from the newly elected Whitlam government allowed the AHC to purchase and restore the first six houses.
When the Fraser Coalition government was elected in 1975, a year later it terminated capital works funding to the project. Without financial assistance the Block descended into disrepair. By the early 1980s the Aboriginal Housing Company had acquired almost half the properties on the Block and with another change of federal government (Hawke/Keating) came renewed support for Redfern’s Aboriginal community. In 1994 the last house on the Block was finally owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company.