Northern Territory to relocate up to 150 homeless shelter residents from Darwin to Batchelor

Up to 150 people in transitional accommodation in Darwin will be relocated 100 kilometres south to the regional town of Batchelor when the Batten Road homeless shelter in Marrara closes next month.

Northern Territory Children and Families Minister Robyn Cahill today announced the new facility would be stood up alongside emergency evacuation accommodation by October 11.

Ms Cahill said the decision to relocate the residents had come after negotiations with the owner of the YiSSA site in Darwin, Ausco, stalled amid a failed $3.5 million Commonwealth intervention.

Speaking to the media in Batchelor this morning, Ms Cahill said a number of options had been explored but the site was "the best option" that was available before AusCo's lease ended.

Ms Cahill said the government had been working to transition as many of the roughly 380 people who had been staying at YiSSA into alternative accommodation ahead of the move.

"There are a number of other people who have been on the housing list for quite some time but the work hadn’t been done to progress that," she said.

"We’ve got support from other community service providers who have a better arrangement for some of the people who need additional support in that facility and the we are left with around about 100 people that we’re still working with to see what their long-term prospect will be.

"So for those people, they’ll be able to come to the new facility and we’ll continue to work with them to find their long-term permanent accommodation solution."

Concern over access to services

Rose Laynbalaynba said she had been living at the Darwin shelter with her children for about two-and-a-half years while working as a language and culture lecturer at Charles Darwin University.

Ms Laynbalaynba said the move was "going to be very hard".

"Batchelor is too far for these residents staying at YiSSA," she said.

"We have renal patients, how the hell do they come for their treatment if it’s that far?

"We need appointments to see the Centrelink, some of us have a job that is part time work.

But Ms Cahill said the Darwin facility was never intended to house people who were medically vulnerable and anyone requiring dialysis would "have accommodation provided to them close to where they get those services".

"We have been working very closely with the Department of Health to understand why people who weren’t necessarily the people who Batten Road was intended to assist were accommodated there and we’ve basically discovered that the Health Department weren’t made aware that those people needed that assistance," she said.

"These people are assessed for their suitability, they know what is required of them and anyone who needs to be close to medical services will be managed through the normal patient travel and Department of Health services system."