The head of a food charity in far-west New South Wales has been left frustrated after being told there was no council land available to build a homeless camp.
Feeding Friends had asked Broken Hill City Council for a block of council land or an unused building to establish a base for homelessness services, including a food outlet, laundry facilities and a transitional camp.
The charity said it was responding to an "urgent need for secure, stable spaces" in the mining city, where those experiencing homelessness could set up temporary and safe shelters.
While the council voted to investigate whether any land was available, Mayor Tom Kennedy made it clear there was not.
"Initial findings is there is no land," Mr Kennedy said.
"So for Feeding Friends to go any further, they're going to have to acquire land themselves.
"[But] what's been proposed before council requires significant planning … [and] vast public consultation."
Prior to the meeting to discuss the request, some locals raised concerns over the encampment's impact on neighbouring residents and businesses.
Demand is increasing
After five years serving hot meals to those experiencing homelessness in Broken Hill, Feeding Friends president Don Barron said demand for its services were growing amid the cost-of-living crisis.
He said the charity now needed a permanent location for its food services.
"I was very disappointed [land wasn't available]," Mr Barron said.
"[The need] has certainly grown in the way of young families.
"We have homeless people in Broken Hill that do have children, they still go to school but they're living in cars.
"It's probably a lack of housing which is the main reason why people are living in cars … [also] affordability, the cost of living is just gone out of control."
No 'legal framework' to address homelessness
Derwent Coshott, a senior lecturer in law at Sydney University, said legally establishing a transitional campsite would require planning approvals.
But he said there was another pathway through a policy of non-enforcement, referring to the state government's protocol for homeless people in public places.
"The policies that have been adopted have been permissive, in so far as you kind of just let people camp there and you don't enforce the law to move them on," Dr Coshott said.
Feeding Friends could ask the council to not enforce the law against them, he said.
"The risk is, of course, that none of this means that the law might not be enforced against them later on."
However, Dr Coshott said the issue raised broader questions about regulating homelessness in NSW.
"We have a NSW administrative protocol that's effectively saying, 'Look, we don't actually have a law that properly deals with this, so the way we're going to deal with this is by not enforcing the law'," Dr Coshott said.
For Mr Barron, who knows what it's like to sleep rough, it is about confronting homelessness head-on.
"It's not just local council's problem, it's a three-tier problem — local council, which doesn't have funds to do it, the state government, which does, and the federal government, which does," Mr Barron said.
"We all need to sit down as a three-tier society, and involve the public, of how we can address this issue."
