It's been a few weeks since Anil Kumar Vemula learned the construction firm he contracted to build a dream home for his family had collapsed, but talking about it still causes him to break down.
The father of two said he felt at a loss about what do next after being told by liquidators managing the collapse of Porter Davis that his $33,000 deposit had been lost.
Mr Vemula spent three years saving up the deposit before signing a contract in September last year.
"We have made a lot of sacrifices," he said.
"They promised to build, but they didn't do [it], not even a single brick, only on the paper."
He said that, in the meantime, his family was living in a small, old house in the suburb of Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne's west.
"I have a dream. I want my family to live in a house where we love," Mr Vemula said.
"Who will help us here?" he asked through tears.
Mr Vemula was among dozens of people who gathered on the steps of the Victorian parliament to draw attention to their predicament and plead with the state government for help on Sunday.
The collapse of Porter Davis has left about 1,700 home building projects in limbo, with the majority of those in Victoria and about 200 in Queensland.
Those who banded together after the collapse of the home builder late last month said they had lost, on average, at least $30,000.
Liquidators appointed to take over the company, Grant Thornton, have warned some customers who had paid a deposit but not had work begin have been left uninsured, meaning their deposits were not protected.
For Mike Tarno, the hardest part of the Porter Davis collapse was not just the loss of tens of thousands of dollars, but the "shattered dreams" of a project never realised.
"You picture yourself in this beautiful house, this new place you would live in that you worked 20 plus years of your life to be able to get, and then it's all gone down the drain, literally, overnight," he said.
He said he his partner had lost $40,000 and felt like they had "wasted" a year-and-a-half of their lives planning a home.
Members of the group called on the government to ensure those left uninsured were covered by the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA), or to set up a compensation fund for those affected by the collapse.
In communications that Grant Thornton sent to Porter Davis customers on Friday, the liquidator said it had shortlisted 15 building firms across Victoria and Queensland that may have the "scale and capability" to complete some of the collapsed company's projects.
Premier flags announcements will be made soon
Premier Daniel Andrews said it was important to establish what had gone on with the collapse of Porter Davis before taking action, but the government would have "more to say" soon.
"We owe it to everybody caught up in this not just to express our sympathies … we're there to provide practical support as well and, most importantly, to learn from this," he said.
"If things have gone wrong, if things that should have happened didn't, then we want to learn from that and we want to make sure that we make the necessary improvements for the future."
He said reports that Porter Davis had offered cut-price contracts to customers it would not be able to fulfil and had not passed insurance payments on caused him to be "very, very concerned".
Mr Andrews said bodies such as the Victorian Building Authority, the VMIA and Consumer Affairs Victoria were "working intensely" to provide support those affected.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto said it was sad that the Porter Davis customers felt compelled to make their case on the steps of parliament, and accused the government of having "dropped the ball" on the issue.
"The Andrews government needs to tell Victorians what it's going to do, not only to protect homebuyers who are suffering because its insurer didn't do its job and because the government wasn't acting on warnings about residential construction collapses as recently as last year," he said.
"It [also] needs to say what it's going to do to prevent further collapses."
