NO COUNCILLOR contacted homeless people to understand their views before kick-starting a process that could stop them camping in a Huntly park, two people living there say.
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Councillors voted on Monday night to seek a change to the Huntly Lions Park's status, so that the City of Greater Bendigo had the power to move people on under community local laws.
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A request is being sent to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
It came after council officers consulted with police and housing provider Haven; Home, Safe earlier this year, according to a report tabled before the meeting.
Adam had been living at the park for about a year.
He felt like no-one at the council had given people living at the park a chance to have a say in Monday's decision.
"You're it, seriously, mate," he said when the Bendigo Advertiser visited, a day-and-a-half after the vote.
The Advertiser was not able to independently verify if any councillors had spoken to any park residents before going to print.
But Adam and Alex* - a person who has lived there for several months - said their only discussions had been with other groups. Neither found out a vote was definitely happening on Monday until a friend heard about it.
They wished they had been able to attend the meeting and have a say. They said they found out too late that it was closed to the public as a COVID-19 precaution.
Alex believed people should be allowed to stay at the park.
"There's nowhere else to go, you can't get a rental property," Alex said.
People living at the park were not the only ones struggling, Donna Gillard from Haven said.
"Where possible, we connect people with housing, but with less than one per cent vacancy in private rentals and no affordable options for people without an income, it is a real challenge to place people in housing at the moment," she said.
Alex said they had found a few short-term places to stay but could not take their dog, and struggled finding a pet-sitter.
Adam said he had faced similar problems.
His dog was his faithful companion. He looked after it, and it looked after him. Parting with it was not an option.
'How would they like it?'
Bendigo's mayor Andrea Metcalf defended the council's handling of the matter, saying the municipality had spent a year working with groups on potential accommodation solutions.
"This has been a challenging issue for councillors as we recognise COVID-19 has exacerbated homelessness and housing stress remains a significant issue for Greater Bendigo," Cr Metcalf said.
Councillors decided last year to defer a decision on the park's future over concerns about the pandemic.
They had made that decision despite concerns that the park was only ever intended for holiday-makers who needed short-stay accommodation, Cr Metcalf said.
"It doesn't meet all the safety requirements that caravan and camping parks have to have in place and so it represents a hazard to longer-term campers," she said.
"Council is not in the business of providing this type of service to the public as there are many alternate providers in the region."
The council was not aware of any concerns about the accommodation that had been offered, though Cr Metcalf said it had deferred those matters to Haven because it lacked relevant expertise.
Multiple councillors who spoke in council chambers ahead of Monday night's vote specifically cautioned against judging why anyone living in the park might have refused accommodation.
One councillor, Greg Penna, said those people were "exploiting" a loophole in council laws to stay at the park, which drew a rebuke from Cr Margaret O'Rourke.
"We don't know people's personal circumstances," she said.
Both Alex and Adam preferred to live at the park because it was close to a bus stop, had toilets and running water, and was safer than some of the many areas people slept rough in Bendigo.
Alex has lived and worked in Bendigo for decades, but talks about "the locals" when discussing some of the tensions between park residents and the wider community.
Some of those locals are kind. Others blare their car horns as they pass the park, or drive into the parkland itself to do doughnuts near people's tents, Alex said. Sometimes strangers arrive looking for fights.
"We are not hurting anybody. How would they like it?" Alex said of such dehumanising treatment.
'Not allowing camping in a park won't change housing issues'
Neither Adam or Alex want to have to move out of Bendigo. They would be too far away from their friends and support networks.
"Here's what I don't understand about a place as small as Bendigo," Adam said.
"All these people look at us, put us down, live in their little luxury holes. And there are all these paddocks ... that are empty and could be used to help people."
Council staff have been working on ideas to help with affordable housing, including a new "homelessness protocol", they said in their report ahead of Monday's vote.
They were also working with the state government on its $85 million planned spend on Bendigo housing.
Council staff have previously said they have sometimes needed police help to deal with some safety issues at the site.
Neither Adam or Alex pretended that there had not been issues with the behaviour of people who had lived in the park, though they said many of the stories circulating the community were complete fabrications or, at the very least, blown out of proportion.
Haven's Donna Gillard warned that there may be no quick-fix for many people struggling to find housing.
"Unfortunately, not allowing camping in a park won't change housing issues for these people, it just makes their challenges less visible for the community," she said.
* Adam asked that his last name be withheld from publication. "Alex" is a pseudonym.
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