Proud winners of the 2025 Urban Developer Development of the Year - Social Infrastructure

Hurrah! We’re thrilled to announce that our Summer Hill centre has taken the top gong in the Social Infrastructure category of the prestigious Urban Developer Awards for 2025. It was a strongly contested category with some major industry players with exceptional entries, so we were really excited to be called up on stage.

Happy much? Winners are definitely grinners.

But we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved with Habilis 1, and believe it to be a deserving winner. Not only is it a clever adaptive re-use of tired industrial buildings in what could have been a challenging position, its use of cost-effective, simple design and materials, light and space creates uplifting homes that are both private and connected, with a therapeutic connection to its natural surrounds.

Habilis 1 provides a calm, safe and monitored environment with secure perimeter and on-site clinic for daily medication and monitoring. Each residence offers privacy, whilst communal areas foster a supportive community. These are the ingredients of success for people living vulnerably with schizophrenia, and key to providing them with a stable, permanent home.

A key consideration for the judges was the effectiveness of our model when compared to prison, hospital or even living in the open. A terrible irony in the cost benefit analysis is that it costs more to neglect the homeless mentally ill than it does to house and care for them, and our earlier estimate that Habilis saves more than $4 for every $1 it costs is probably an under-estimate. We’re onto something here - it’s why we’re determined to open more centres and make a significant impact on this very solvable issue.

Special thanks goes to all partners involved in the successful planning and delivery of Habilis 1.