In late November workers at the Glebe Youth Service turned up to work one day to find the locks had been changed and they couldn't get in.
The service was shut down with only a few hours notice by NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) due to non compliance with fire safety standards.
However many are not convinced as to the validity of the fire hazard, with hundreds of people turning up to protest the closure outside Glebe Primary School over the weekend.
"It is completely unacceptable that alternatives have not been worked out with the GYS to make sure that young people in this area, particular the Aboriginal people get a proper youth service" says NSW Deputy oppostion Leader, Linda Burney.
The property is leased to Glebe Youth Service from the state at a rent of $1 per annum and in return the service runs education, employment and youth programs for their predomininatly Indigenous clientele.
NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker has been organising the campaign to save the service and he says the closure is just one symptom of a wider problem in the NSW State government.
"Over the next four years they will be selling twice as much public housing as they are building," he says." So the crisis in public housing is only set to get worse and we are drawing a line here right now."
A performance audit of Land and Housing Corp NSW shows that over the last 10 years over 5,500 public dwellings have been sold, worth $1.2 billion dollars.
But Family and Community Services spokesperson Mark Byrne says the closure is purely aimed at ensuring the safety of the tenants.
"I really want to make it clear that we see the merit in the services provided and we also acknowledge that this was not about trying to close down that service," he says.
Local chaplain Jeff Hockey has been working with the youth service for 6 years and says the program has been instrumental in seeing youth crime in the area drop to a 30 yr low.
He also says he has seen seen what the program means some of the families in the area.
"It means everything," he says. "Some night on a Friday night, it's 6 degreees and freezing cold and I'm driving the internet bus down and I think, 'great there will be noone here tonight I'll go home early', and I get there and there's 30 kids huddled under the awning waiting for us to arrive."
FACS has provided a terrace house just around the corner for GYS staff to use temporarily as administrative premises while an alternative location is sought for the service
