Cranbourne Salvation Army car park attracts homeless people
HOMELESS people looking for a safe place to spend the night have been flocking to a car park in Melbourne’s southeast where they sleep in cars and tents.
South East
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HOMELESS people are sleeping rough for up to a week at a time in Cranbourne’s Salvation Army car park in New Holland Drive.
Some have tents and others are sleeping in cars. All are doing it tough. But for many, it is the safest place around.
Army corps officer Major Robert Evans said the numbers were increasing rapidly in the wake of growing family violence and breakdown across Casey.
“It’s reached the point where we are constantly having to buy blankets and tents just to keep up,” Mr Evans said.
“A combination of alcohol abuse, housing stress, sudden income reductions and young people being ordered out of their family homes for any number of reasons is behind many of the problems.”
Mr Evans said it was not uncommon to find several people sleeping in a small car or others sleeping on a mattress without any overhead shelter.
“Sometimes we don’t even see the people, just a mattress or something else they’ve left behind,” he said.
“When we can, we either speak to them or leave a note inviting them inside our building for food, coffee or just a hot shower. It’s heartbreaking.”
Mr Evans said Casey had a critical shortage of emergency housing and other accommodation options for people who found themselves suddenly without a home.
“We don’t have suitable family motels or caravan parks. There’s virtually nothing we can use to avert a crisis.”
Mr Evans said recent examples of homeless problems included two 18-year-old girls who called on the Salvos for help after they slept the night in a public toilet and a 60-year-old woman who slept in the car park and woke with severe breathing problems.
“We’ve also had a man who chose to sleep in our car park because he thought it offered greater security after he was beaten by a pack of youths in a reserve in Cranbourne West,” Mr Evans said.
“And I’ve conducted a funeral for a homeless man who spent several nights in a tent and later died of pneumonia.”
Mr Evans said there was an urgent need for different support services in Casey to develop better networks to make maximum use of the things they had to help people in crisis.