Motion to criminalise homelessness chopped and repackaged, moves to community consultation

The City of Port Phillip Council has come under fire from homelessness safety advocates and local residents after a motion to criminalise rough sleeping on public land was revised and voted through. Mia Rubenstein reports.

Port Phillip Council is due to enter its second round of community consultation on amending local laws to disband homeless encampments.

The Port Phillip area, which ranges from Port Melbourne to St. Kilda, has seen a rise in rough sleepers, who have taken to encampments on council land.

At a public meeting in May, councillors debated for over four hours on a motion that would have allowed local law enforcement to fine rough sleepers caught on public land. However, a division saw the motion amended to allow the Council special powers to assign "no encampment" zones where rough sleepers may reduce the amenities of council land while community consultation was underway.

The amended motion for disbanding encampments was passed five to three, with City of Port Phillip Mayor Louise Crawford opposing the motion. At the meeting, she likened the rough sleeping fines to the "tip out" laws introduced some years ago, which criminalised public drinking.

“There’s probably been five tip-outs in seven years, and no one’s any safer, and nothing’s changed,” she said.

“We need effective solutions, and I just don’t think this is it.”

The original motion to assign fines to rough sleepers on council land had considerable local opposition, with a petition to oppose the motion garnering 1300 signatures. Emma McNicol, a Port Phillip resident, started the petition because she believed the new laws were unfair.

McNicol said that rough sleepers “do not make me feel unsafe”, but rather that “they are unsafe" and needed support from the council, not more policing.

Maeve Hoare, a local resident and trader on Acland Street, said fines or encampment smashing were nothing more than a “band-aid fix” and would not have solved any of the problems outright. As a trader in an area with a fairly large homeless community, the change of law would not be “actually helping people to get off the street, it will… just create more tension,” she said.

The second round of community consultation into a new ten-year Homelessness and Affordable Housing Stratergy will open from the 22nd of August until the 18th of September; however, the City of Port Phillip Council will continue to "engage key stakeholders" near encampments on council land in enforcing no-encampment zones.

Debate around the council's original motion to issue fines to rough sleepers faced hot contention over whether the law would violate Victoria's Human Rights Charter. Advocates continue to call for action against the council's enforcement of encampment disbanding; however, some local residents are wanting council to address the issue soon after spats of 'anti-social' behaviour around encampments.