Nowhere to go for homeless evicted from city park
Savannah Meacham |
Rough sleepers have been given 30 minutes to vacate tents in a park as part of a “traumatic” crackdown by Australia’s largest council.
The Brisbane City Council has been accused of ordering homeless campers to move on and giving them no alternative housing option after working with police to clear Musgrave Park on Thursday.
The council – Australia’s biggest with about 1.2 million people – has enforced a ban on rough sleepers in the city’s parks that was introduced two months ago in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Alfred to stop violent or anti-social behaviour.
Ken Solberg Jr has been homeless for seven months after being unable to secure a permanent rental during the housing crisis.
He was woken up in his small blue tent that sat alongside 10 others in the park on Thursday morning by police and council workers who told him he had half an hour to leave.
“There was no plan, what do I do next?” he told AAP.
Mr Solberg has been given temporary accommodation on several occasions since he came out of corrective services in October but found it scarier than living on the streets.
“It was just soul crushing, it’s a shoe box rife with crime and drugs,” he said.
“I’d rather be homeless than be preyed upon.”
Musgrave Park hasn’t felt much safer for Mr Solberg, forced to stick to himself and keep few belongings to avoid becoming a robbery target.
The rough sleeper has since been offered another temporary accommodation spot and he hopes it will be safer than the previous boarding houses.
The council crackdown, which has been ongoing since March, was also in response to northern neighbours Moreton Bay criminalising homeless camping on public land with threats of fines up to $8000.
Amid fears homelessness would trickle south due to the Moreton Bay ban, the Brisbane council gave rough sleepers 24 hours to vacate Musgrave Park in March.
However, authorities did not enforce the action, which meant many kept sleeping on the park grounds.
But on Thursday morning, council workers and police arrived to move along dozens of rough sleepers.
Authorities were met with volunteers from poverty networks and dozens of members of the construction union CFMEU to protest the action at Musgrave Park.
Bec Pring was helping people pack up their belongings when police arrived and witnessed the stress among those forced out of the park without an alternative.
“This has been so traumatic for people, we had a lot of people who abandoned their tent and ran because they were scared to get arrested,” the Community Union Defence League volunteer told AAP.
She blamed the action on Musgrave Park hosting the annual Greek festival Paniyiri on May 17, saying people get displaced every year.
The council has denied the claim, saying the “move on” order was unrelated.
Greens councillor for the Gabba Trina Massey said, regardless of the motive, the decision lacked planning and support to ensure those sleeping rough had access to accommodation.
“This is a cruel action,” she told AAP.
“There is nowhere for people to go … there might be no tents but the issue of rough sleeping will still exist after today and the council’s actions.”
Cr Massey said the council had previously allowed an exclusion zone for rough sleepers to remain during Paniyiri but this year there had been no such lenience.
Brisbane City Council blamed the Greens for accepting rough sleepers in “dangerous” tent encampments where there is “anti-social behaviour, violence and drug use”.
“Parks should be safe for all Brisbane residents, not turned into no-go zones because of violence, drug use and anti-social behaviour,” City Standards Chair Sarah Hutton said in a statement.
Queensland Police said officers attended to keep the peace.
AAP
