Ozanam House’ Coconut Grove move set for October 7, as welfare model questioned

Passive welfare has been questioned as a new “dignity” care facility prepares to shift from inner-Darwin to Coconut Grove. Read who’ll be there.

The Ozanam House homeless day centre will relocate from Stuart Park to Dick Ward Drive in Coconut Grove on Monday, October 7.

The Development Consent Authority approved the temporary relocation earlier this year, with centre managers St Vincent de Paul Society given two years to find a new, permanent centre to replace the Coconut Grove facility.

The move to relocate the 50-year-old centre to land owned by Gwalwa Daraniki Association, angered residents and businesses in Coconut Grove, worried at the impact an influx of itinerants would have on amenity within the residential and commercial precinct.

The new centre is located behind a number of cyclone fences with a concrete walkway extending from the front-entrance to the shelter facilities, making users of the program extremely visible to passers-by.

The new Ozanam House in Coconut Grove

In a statement to the NT News, St Vincent’s said the new facility would “continue providing dignity and support services to the most vulnerable members of the community”.

The relocation split the previous NT Government with Natasha Fyles and Brent Potter, the two Labor MLAs whose electorates bordered the centre, opposing the relocation while their colleague, then Housing Minister Ngaree Ah Kit, supported the move.

All three lost their seats at last month’s Territory election.

The Opposition CLP also supported the move, with its unsuccessful candidate for the Nightcliff electorate Helen Secretary backing the relocation and party leader Lia Finocchiaro, focused on winning the Fong Lim electorate, which included Stuart Park, prepared to see Ozanam House move in the interests of the CLP securing the inner-Darwin electorate.

The CLP’s Fong Lim candidate Tanzil Rahman defeated Labor incumbent Mark Monaghan.

St Vincent de Paul Society has consistently declined to discuss the project publicly, rejecting several requests for interview and communicating through written statements.

A face-to-face interview and tour of the new facility is scheduled for next week.

Ozanam House in Stuart Park is preparing to close. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

St Vincent’s declined to respond to questions about the passive welfare model provided at Ozanam House, where itinerants are fed, showered, have their clothes washed and then return to the streets.

St Vincent’s de Paul said Ozanam House supported on average 100 people a day and in 2023 provided 68,000 meals, more than 11,500 showers and almost 4800 loads of washing.

Former NT Attorney-General and now Adelaide-based lawyer John Elferink, an opponent of passive welfare, questioned the benefits of services like Ozanam House.

“Ozanam House, like so many other (services), charitable or otherwise, respond to what are heart wrenching and deplorable things we see in our streets every day,” he said.

“The irony is that those outcomes are completely subsidised by welfare spending and underwritten by taxpayers.

“In a world where there is a labour shortage, we see people decaying in their idleness. It must now be clear to even the most casual observer that throwing money at poverty does not fix poverty, it merely reinforces it.”