GAWLER Council has released a staff report into homelessness in the town in the same week it discarded a homeless man’s belongings found in one of its reserves.
At their meeting last Tuesday night, elected members were presented with a report into how the council was supporting homeless people and organisations in the town.
The next morning, The Bunyip reported a homeless man staying in Dead Man’s Pass had his belongings, including a mobile phone, collected and discarded by council staff.
Gawler Council confirmed the incident occurred, but said staff mistook his belongings for dumped rubbish.
The report tabled last week outlined the advocacy roles council takes on the issue, as well as the services it provided, such as shelter during extreme weather events.
These events – named code blues for extreme cold and cold reds for extreme heat – see council open its facilities to shelter people sleeping rough.
Councillor Ian Tooley said council should go further to help those less fortunate.
“Recently we’ve heard figures that are quite alarming regarding the actual numbers of people suffering,” he said.
“Code reds and code blues assume that the need only exists during office hours.
“When you stop and think about it, to say to people in need that you can only get what you need during office hours and during an extreme heat or extreme cold situation, that’s not doing enough.
“Despite the need and despite my homelessness motion, there is absolutely no dollar value or budget allocations to address the issue.”
As reported in The Bunyip last week, local support services are worried a drop in the JobSeeker rate last week is set to cause more people to need financial support and possibly fall into homelessness.
Earlier this year, The Bunyip also reported Ucare Gawler had seen its demand for food support services triple during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the organisation providing food for around 150 households per day.
During last week’s meeting, councillor Paul Koch said it was “outside council’s remit” to provide its own support services for the homeless.
“I am concerned that conversations could move to the point where we are going to be offering our assets and providing shelter 24 hours, seven days a week,” he said.
“It’s outside of our remit. To provide that service you need segregated areas for males and females, segregated families, you need people on the roster 24 hours a day and professional people.
“I know we have volunteers in the community, but you can’t expect a volunteer to be there at 2am if someone has an episode or there’s an issue with drugs and alcohol.
“I know it sounds good to say we could do something in this benevolent space, but in reality it’s not our remit.”
