About

There were at least fourteen government-operated hostels in South Australia between 1949 and the mid-1990s. In addition there were a number of migrant work camps or other forms of employer-associated migrant accommodation.

There is very little easily accessible information on the migrant hostels, though there are some notable exceptions of memoirs by various former residents. Limited research on the official records has been undertaken to date. No comprehensive or comparative work looking at all South Australian hostels has ever been undertaken.

Thousands of migrants passed through South Australia's migrant hostels, reception centres, and camps from the 1940s to the 1990s. The hostels were temporary homes to a wide range of migrants, from Displaced Persons and refugees, through to Ten Pound Poms. The opportunity to gather first-hand accounts of day-to-day life in the hostels is diminishing as the years pass by. This project will help ensure that the memories are captured for future generations and the historical record.