Crisis deepens at tent city
Showgrounds beg for help
THE Royal Hobart Showgrounds has been inundated with homeless Tasmanians at its Glenorchy site since December due to the lack of rental accommodation in the south of the state, Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania chief executive Scott Gadd says.
Mr Gadd has already found a number of families homes to move into, but there are still about six tents on-site, housing eight people.
Those residents copped a battering at the weekend as wild winds and rain lashed Hobart.
“There are a couple of people that have lost their tents,” Mr Gadd told the Mercury yesterday. “It gets bitterly cold here through winter, and windy most days.”
Even in perfect weather conditions, it is a less than ideal environment with only the most basic of facilities available — a tiny kitchen with a few essential appliances, plus some shower blocks and toilets.
As well as acting as a social worker, Mr Gadd this weekend oversaw four events at the showgrounds, including an influx of caravans and campervans for the Outdoor Leisure Expo.
Mr Gadd says he has tried, in the most trying of conditions, to provide a safe place for homeless people to shelter, but the tent city may have to be shut down.
“The run of issues in the last week is really starting to make me think that maybe we need to shut the doors and deal with what we’ve got for the time being,” Mr Gadd said.
“We’re probably at that point where we’re either going to have to shut down if we don’t get some help, because it’s actually starting to take its toll.
“In an ideal world there would be somewhere else to move these people to.”
Mr Gadd said there had been no support from social services at the showgrounds until last week, and more was still needed.
“The Salvation Army has a homeless worker who has been coming into the park and helping me, and I’ve brought another lady in to help me,” he said.
“We need a full-time case worker in here and I think I need security to make everyone safe.
“Here we are Sunday and I’ve been here all weekend and I’ve been here since 7.30 every morning and I’ll probably still be here at 7.30 tonight.
“I’ve got staff who by default are having to deal with stuff as well, so it is actually starting to get a bit much.”
The State Government convened a housing summit last week in response to the rental crisis.
However, it will be weeks before immediate solutions are implemented after the summit endorsed longer-term policies but held back on agreeing to solutions that would provide instant relief to Tasmanian families sleeping rough.
Measures endorsed at the summit include the release of 239ha of government-owned land potentially suitable for residential development of up to 3000 homes, and fast-tracking legislation to rezone land identified for release.
With more wild weather expected overnight and snow expected to fall down to 1000m today, Labor housing spokesman Josh Willie said urgent action was required.
“The key point is that the Government needs to reassess its spending priorities,” Mr Willie said.
“They’ve committed $125 million for an affordable housing package, but this is a crisis, they’re going to have to reassess their other spending priorities and redirect more funding towards housing and homelessness.
“This is a Government which is going to give $6.8 million to the pro-pokies
lobby while people are sleeping rough and languishing in tents as winter approaches.
“It needs to be a multipronged approach so some of those short-term solutions need to be implemented and obviously then we need to look to the medium to long term so that people can transition into more permanent accommodation.”
TasCOSS chief executive Kym Goodes has said solutions proposed to deal with the immediate crisis at the housing summit would be considered over the next two or three weeks before being endorsed.
She said immediacy of the crisis meant quick solutions were needed, but it was important to ensure more prob- lems would not be created.
A Government spokesman said yesterday that it was providing additional incentives for rental accommodation, and there was over 100 new affordable homes and crisis beds coming online before June.