Sad story behind sale of giant road trailer with sleeping pods as Aussie crisis worsens
Kirsten Ritchie, who runs Launceston-based charity Strike it Out, said community fundraising allowed them to purchase and fit out two huge trailers — one with seven sleeping pods and another with showers and amenities — at a cost of $160,000.
The big undertaking to help the growing homeless population began back in 2019. But now more than five years later, still with no council approval, she has been left with no choice but to sell the innovative trailers.
Ritchie warned that homelessness in Launceston in Tasmania is at crisis levels, with census data showing 67 in every 10,000 residents sleep rough, well above the national average of 48.
Speaking to Yahoo News, she described her relentless efforts to get the project off the ground, only to have the council repeatedly reject her proposals, leaving her with no viable alternative as she has been unable to park the sleeping pods on council land.
The City of Launceston Council said Kirsten failed to obtain the appropriate documentation to have the pods installed permanently, and cited "antisocial behaviour" among occupants and local complaints for their dismissal. But Kirsten argued the City made it unnecessarily difficult to obtain the permits, and said that effectively, she was told "council are not interested and never will be".
The best course of action to further give back to the community, Kirsten said, is now to sell the pods.
"I'm so exhausted, I'm pretty much done," she told Yahoo News Australia. "They're never going to be interested in making this happen."
"We don't have money to afford our own piece of land to purchase, and it has to be in the correct zoning and all that kind of stuff anyway. I thought the community own the community spaces, don't we?"
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Kirsten argued council should prioritise "collecting rates, organising rubbish and the roads" and believes her and the local homeless community have been treated unfairly.
"All I want is to provide the homeless community with their basic human rights, with infrastructure that's available 24/7," she said.
With the pods now losing value "sitting in a paddock waiting for something to happen", she's looking for buyers.
For its part, the City told the ABC it had "worked tirelessly" to help Strike it Out over the past couple of years, but the charity "repeatedly failed to come to the table" with what officials "needed for a legitimate proposal."
Yahoo News Australia has sought further comment from the City of Launceston Council.
Kirsten claimed she even sought advice from a human rights lawyer just before Christmas. Though she said his attempts at contacting the City were ignored.
"Council said the risks are too high [to establish the pods]," she said. "Well I say, don't you think there's more risk in sleeping rough than there is providing amenities and helping people?"
Kirsten said she's had quite a lot of interest in the pods, from those in "private businesses", to the healthcare sector and accommodation service providers.
"It's just ridiculous, there's so many other mobile facilities operation around Australia — I don't know why it's so hard."
Cities across the country are facing pushback over their handling of rising homelessness. On Wednesday, the Brisbane City Council and its Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told homeless people living in tents in public parks they had 24 hours to pack up and vacate. He said the move was an effort to make the city safer.
'As a community that cares, I don't believe we should ever accept that tents in public parks are an acceptable substitute for secure and safe accommodation," he said in a statement.
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