AS THE winter chills get colder, the conditions get more brutal for those living on the streets of our great city.
Last week, the old National Australia Bank building on East St had its alcoves boarded up, forcing the homeless who resided in that space to be moved on.
The fall-out began almost immediately, with the Ipswich City Council being wrongly hit with the brunt of the blame.
Rumours regarding the suspicious timing coinciding with the lead-in to the SPARK Festival, along with murmurs over who signed off on the decision, grew through local print media, social media and the wider community like these matters do.
However, Council had no say in the decision, Mayor Teresa Harding told Local Ipswich News.
“The old NAB Building is private property and this action has been taken by the building owner,” she said.
“Council did not give any direction to the building owner in regard to taking this action or the timing of it.”
Cr Harding said she understood that the building owner intended to renovate the premises, and said that would be welcomed by Council and the community.
“Council is aware that the rough sleepers at this location have received multiple offers for assistance to secure alternate accommodation,” she said.
“Only days before the boarding went up, inCommunity was onsite to assist with moving their belongings and securing accommodation, but this offer was again declined.”
Cr Harding said there was often a misconception in the community that Council was responsible for the provision of social housing and homelessness outreach.
“However, it is the Queensland Government that is responsible for and funded to address these critical issues,” she said.
“Homelessness is generally a culmination of many challenging social issues. Adequately addressing these requires significant clinical and support services that are outside the control of the Council.
“Anyone who believes otherwise has a pretty simplistic view of this complex issue.”
Helen’s Haven co-founder and passionate advocate for homelessness in the region, Helen Youngberry, said she had not seen a rise in take-up of their services but also suggested that organisations were going the wrong way about addressing the issue.
“inCommunity is a new funded organisation with their main connection to youth,” she said.
“They do, however, have an under 25s home, and I’d like to see what their offer was (to the people living outside the NAB building).
“I would like to know if there was a coverage of services to help them, not that they just say come and live with us and pay $250 per week in one place that also has problems.
“We need to talk to these people and find out why they are homeless and work with them.”
Ms Youngberry said each one would likely be different and those differences needed to be considered.
“If they did that, then the offers would have been received better, I think,” she said.
“Over the last three to four weeks we have seen a plateau in calls to us but don’t get me wrong, there is a disaster out there.”
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