Sleeping rough: Clarence to take homelessness action

The Clarence Council plans to take action to address homelessness as many resort to a ‘tent city’ in the area. THE DISCUSSION>>

Clarence Council will investigate what more it can do to help those sleeping rough in the municipality, after it was suggested the council could take advantage of the empty golf club.

Ald Richard James suggested the council work with service providers to use the vacant building at the Rosny Golf Club as accommodation.

“We are all aware of the small tent city in Kangaroo Bay which has been in that carpark now for a few months,” Mr James said.

Tex who is long term homeless and now living at Kangaroo Bay in a tent. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“During that times there has been determination from Clarence residents to say why is that happening within the City of Clarence?

“We can call upon the special services of the Salvation Army, St Vincent DePaul, to try to work with Clarence to at least have a pocket of people who currently experience homelessness in the city to really take them on board and actually utilise the vacant golf club building.”

General manager Ian Nelson said there was one vacant building on the former golf course land which was not suitable for accommodation.

The motion was amended by James Walker to instead have council staff create a report to inform how homelessness can be addressed.

“This is a step in a much broader process that we would have wished to take at some point

to investigate the feasibility of bringing accommodation options onto the Eastern Shore because at the moment most of them are concentrated in Hobart CBD,” Mr Nelson said.

New Clarence Council GM

“We know historically quite a number of homeless people used to travel back to the CBD to obtain accommodation because there wasn’t any on the Eastern Shore.”

Wendy Kennedy said it was a good idea to identify suitable spaces to work with service providers.

“I think in my first few months on council I actually brought up in questions without notice, the amount of people I saw living rough in the dunes at Seven Mile Beach,” Ms Kennedy said.

“The majority of them were women my age, some had children, no shelter available whatsoever on the Eastern Shore at that stage.”

Clarence City Council Alderman Wendy Kennedy. Picture: Alastair Bett

Heather Chong said more was needed than picking a building and putting people in it.

“If we got rid of that reference to that golf club building I would absolutely be supporting this,” Ms Chong said.

“It would be great to take stock of what we have and work on a way to make facilities available to people.”

The amended motion was carried 8-3.

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Originally published as Sleeping rough: Clarence to take homelessness action