Homeless being turfed from hotels during lockdowns lulls

Homeless people provided with emergency hotel accommodation are being turfed onto the streets or forced to live in unstable housing in between Victoria’s lockdowns.

The Victorian government is only providing funding for homeless hotels during lockdowns, leading to frustration among housing providers who cannot always secure safe accommodation for their clients each time stay-at-home orders are lifted.

The Salvation Army crisis support centre in St Kilda was listed as an exposure site on Wednesday.Credit:Chris Hopkins

The state has gone in and out of lockdown four times this year, with more emergency orders expected in the period before vaccination-rate targets are met.

A St Kilda sex worker, who is one of the state’s mystery cases, and her homeless acquaintance tested positive to COVID-19 earlier this week.

The cases prompted concern about a potential outbreak among the state’s homeless. None of the 57 new cases recorded in Victoria on Thursday were homeless.

A government spokesman confirmed 1005 doses of the vaccine had been given to the state’s homeless.

Bevan Warner, chief executive of housing provider Launch, said the organisation was only funded to provide hotels during lockdowns.

“As soon as the lockdown ends, we have the difficult job of then working with people to say ‘well that’s over now, what are we going to do about your housing, where you’re going to live’,” he said.

“That’s not always easy, and it doesn’t always lead to great outcomes.”

Mr Warner said homeless people often returned to the streets, boarding homes or couch-surfing.

There are significantly fewer people in the hotels for homeless program during the state’s sixth lockdown than last year, but the number is not capped and is expected to rise if stay-at-home orders remain in place.

This is in part due to the about 1223 people who have been moved from hotels into houses as part of the $150 million From Homelessness to a Home program, which is more than half of the target announced in July last year. The remaining people are waiting to be processed in hotels.

Mr Warner seconded calls in Thursday’s report by Infrastructure Victoria to increase social housing on top of the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build program that was announced last year and will fund 12,000 new social and affordable homes over four years.

He said the homeless to home program was the envy on the nation, but also needed to be expanded.

The government spokesman confirmed there had been 19,000 placements in the hotel program since the start of the pandemic. There were 1667 people in the program last week.

During the peak on the state’s second lockdown, Launch was housing 2500 people in hotels. It had 520 people across 46 hotels on Wednesday, which included new cases and those who have been waiting to be moved into a home since last December.

Unison Housing now has 170 households in hotels compared to 500 this time last year, but the organisation expects numbers to grow each week as the lockdown drags on.

It has moved 228 households into the homeless to homes program.

Unison chief executive James King said it had also been difficult for housing organisation to find accommodation for homeless people in between lockdowns.

“What’s really challenging, is every time there’s a lockdown, we’re instructed to ramp up housing [for] rough sleepers and placing them into hotel accommodation and then, as soon as the lockdown is over, we get told, ‘okay, now you have to start holding off on paying for that’,” he said.

Stacey Aslangul, chief executive of St Kilda Gatehouse, a drop-in centre for sex workers, said about half her clients who needed hotel accommodation during lockdowns were receiving it.

She said the naming of the COVID-positive women’s occupation was leading other sex workers to fear being targeted or further stigmatised.

The two cases prompted mass testing at St Kilda rooming houses and hostels on Wednesday. Vaccinations have also being provided at homeless services during the rollout.

Youth Projects chief executive Ben Vasiliou said most close contacts to of the two cases that had used the organisation’s The Living Room in the CBD had been located and tested on Wednesday after earlier concern it would be a difficult job.

He said any positive cases requiring hotel quarantine would need social workers, medication and mental health support.

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Chloe Booker is a city reporter for The Age.

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