EDITORIAL | Precarious Shifts in Homelessness Policy
Hard-line civic law changes, damaging to the rights of homeless persons, appear destined for defeat. But compliance officers may yet wield greater powers, and a crackdown on Melbourne’s most vulnerable is still on the cards.
Tsiboho, photographed sleeping rough at the corner of Swanston and Collins streets - 03/12/17.
Homelessness is on the rise in Melbourne. The increased presence on the streets, especially in the inner city, can hardly go unnoticed. Rough sleepers are seen bedding down on footpaths throughout the CBD, an uncomfortable truth that might have been inconceivable 5 or 10 years ago. It's a concern matched by data. In 2015 council’s StreetCount survey observed 83 people sleeping rough, the next year the figure had ballooned out to 247. Of those surveyed in 2016, 68% had been entrenched in homelessness for over a year. Coupled with an acute shortage of supportive housing, and with welfare services already stretched, Melbourne’s dire trend looks set to continue.
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