Never a fan of Channel 9 programming, this news report has turned my indifference to the existence of this television channel into active dislike.
ABC
News, 21
November 2018:
 |
| PHOTO: The Block's contestants on auction day for the renovated Gatwick Hotel. (AAP: Nine Entertainment) |
The lights, cameras and
crowds have finally cleared out of St Kilda following the auctions last month
at the Gatwick Private Hotel, a run-down three-storey rooming house that was
transformed into six multi-million-dollar apartments for this year's season of
the popular home renovation show, The Block.
But as the new owners
collect the keys and prepare to move in to their luxury lodgings, ABC News can
reveal an "alarming" number of women who used to live at the Gatwick
— a place of "last resort" for some of Melbourne's most vulnerable —
are currently in jail.
Channel Nine's purchase
of the 1930s mansion, which in its prime could house up to 120 people, was
welcomed last year by St Kilda residents who blamed the Fitzroy Street boarding
house — one of several to close in recent years as part of the area's
gentrification — for local problems with "rampant" drug-fuelled
violence and anti-social behaviour.
At the time, the local
council and state government worked with housing services in St Kilda to find
new accommodation, mostly outside the area, for its remaining occupants, who
were evicted in time for filming to commence.
But many of those
tenancies were unsustainable and fell through, homelessness support workers
say, and because of an acute lack of crisis accommodation across Melbourne,
dozens were dispersed onto the streets.
This includes at least
32 women who have since been charged and imprisoned for offences lawyers and
support workers say are directly related to their homelessness — an issue that
affects all genders but which leaves women particularly vulnerable.
Now, with the state
preparing to head to the polls after an election campaign dominated by debate
over law and order, advocates are calling on the government to urgently boost
funding for crisis accommodation and homelessness services to break a vicious
cycle that is causing the number of women in Victoria's prisons to soar.
One worker who runs a
program supporting under-privileged women in St Kilda told ABC News that, since
the beginning of 2018, 32 of her clients who were living on or off lease at The
Gatwick have since been incarcerated at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre,
Melbourne's maximum security women's prison.
Though 17 of those women
have been released in recent months, she said, 15 still remain, many of them on
remand.
"There is
absolutely no doubt that The Gatwick's closure has had an effect particularly
on women in the city of Port Phillip," said the worker, who asked not to
be named because she feared speaking out would jeopardise her organisation's
public funding arrangements.
"I'm not
necessarily saying that The Gatwick was the best place for people to live
because there were a lot of issues — there were some deaths there, there was
violence. But everybody needs a place to stay."
The majority of the
worker's clients in Dame Phyllis have been charged with drug-related offences
which are believed to be a result of their homelessness, she said. "Many
women with involvement in the justice system offend to fund their drug habit
and use substances to self-medicate," she said.
"Sleeping rough is
extremely unsafe for women so many use drugs to keep themselves awake at night,
which provides them with a false sense of security."
Forced homelessness is not confined to Victoria,
As the
Pacific Highway Upgrade works its way up the NSW North Coast there are reports
of people couch surfing after their landlords gave them notice in favour of
road worker tenants capable of paying higher rents.
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