THE NAKED CITY – with Coffin Ed, Jay Katz & Miss Death

Groundhog Day For Sydney’s Homeless

It’s that time of year again when the plight of the homeless in Sydney is highlighted by the annual St Vincent de Paul Winter Sleepout. Last week at Luna Park CEO’s from some of Australia’s biggest companies bedded down for the night in high quality sleeping bags to approximate a night spent on our mean streets sleeping rough.

Whilst the exercise is well intended and raises a large amount of money it’s a long way removed from the reality that many of the homeless face, forced to bed down with inadequate cover, night after night, in vulnerable and unprotected situations. Perhaps next year the Winter Sleepout organizers might look at a more appropriate location like Woolloomooloo’s Cathedral Street where the overflow from the Matthew Talbot hostel sleep on the cold pavement outside the unmanned police station and in the recently revamped “user unfriendly” Walla Mulla Park.

For all the good intentions voiced about the homeless what is desperately needed at this time of the year, particularly when it’s wet and the temperature drops to below ten degrees, is temporary accommodation to get people off the street and removed from the danger of hypothermia.

Last year during the winter months about twenty five homeless men took up temporary residence at the back of the Domain Car Park in a normally unused undercover area facing Sir John Young Crescent. Whilst it wasn’t exactly warm, at least it was dry and protected from the wind. Within weeks they were removed by the police and thousands of dollars spent building security cages to keep them out.

The money spent on “securing” the car park could easily have gone to erecting a temporary marquee or converting the numerous vacant spaces owned by the State Government and City Of Sydney Council to provide winter accommodation for three or four months. The relevant authorities have only to look overseas to see how other cities have dealt with this problem.

In Turkey for example the Ankara administration rented a five storey hotel last winter to provide short term accommodation and thanks to tips from residents, the homeless were picked up and transported there. All told some 700 homeless people were rescued from the freezing cold and hosted by the municipality. London has similar programs using churches and community halls as do numerous cities throughout Europe and North America.

There are huge problems to be solved when it comes to the plight of the homeless but when winter hits surely the most pressing is the basic health issue of getting people into a warm and safe sleeping situation. If a homeless man dies from hypothermia or a related illness it’s a statistic we seldom hear about. A bunch of good natured CEO’s sleeping out in their Kathmandu sleeping bags at Luna Park makes for much better copy.