Vickie Burkinshaw asks if Wagga is managing homelessness rather than solving it. Photo: Chris Roe.
Vickie Burkinshaw, on behalf of the Wagga Homelessness Action Group, has responded to former Wilks Park volunteer Phil Barton after he criticised her recent parody of Wagga’s homelessness crackdown.
Ms Burkinshaw’s original parody used humour to question the way people experiencing homelessness were being moved on from Wilks Park and other public spaces, and whether enough was being done to address the causes of homelessness.
Mr Barton, who volunteered at Wilks Park in 2022, hit back at the parody, arguing it was unfair on council staff, volunteers and people working with people experiencing homelessness, while drawing on his own experience at the park.
Now, Ms Burkinshaw and her group responds:
Thanks Phil.
I appreciate you sharing your personal experience at Wilks Park in 2022, and I don’t doubt that you witnessed some very difficult and complex circumstances.
I am in touch daily with current volunteers, who are actively involved in advocating for and supporting people experiencing homelessness in our community. You are not. And the so-called ‘assertive outreach services’ are not. You are welcome to join us.
Your experience in 2022 is relevant and valuable, but it is not the only experience or perspective that should inform this conversation.
Housing costs, rents and the cost of living have changed significantly. The availability of affordable and social housing has not kept pace with need. More people are presenting at Wilks Park because they have nowhere else to go.
That matters.
So does the changing role of the community sector.
Increasingly, charities and community organisations are being contracted to deliver government-funded services, with funding tied to programs, outputs and compliance. That can leave less room for the very thing that people experiencing homelessness actually need: advocacy, flexibility, persistence and someone willing to stand beside them when the system doesn’t fit.
There is a legitimate question about whether we have inadvertently created a service system that is increasingly accountable to government, rather than primarily accountable to the people it exists to serve.
That is part of the conversation too.
The parody was not an attack on council staff, volunteers or people attempting to work with people experiencing homelessness. It was a deliberate and provocative commentary on the response to homelessness.
And that response needs to be judged by outcomes.
More people experiencing homelessness are presenting at Wilks Park every day.
If people are moved on, fined, relocated or pushed out of one public space and then appear somewhere else, we haven’t solved homelessness. We have simply moved people around.
Tents have reappeared at Wilks Park, but they’re hidden. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
Of course, council has responsibilities for public health, safety, sanitation and amenity. Nobody is arguing otherwise.
But council also has a responsibility to participate in finding solutions to the growing number of people who have nowhere safe, suitable and sustainable to live.
You say homelessness deserves serious discussion and serious solutions.
Absolutely.
So let’s have that discussion.
How many people currently experiencing homelessness in Wagga have been permanently housed?
How many have been moved on from Wilks Park, and where have they gone?
How many have returned to homelessness?
What supported accommodation exists for people who cannot immediately sustain a conventional tenancy?
What transitional housing is available?
What is being done about people leaving hospital, prison or crisis accommodation with nowhere to go?
What is the plan for the next person who arrives at Wilks Park because they have nowhere else?
Because they are arriving.
Every day.
My parody was never suggesting that homelessness is simple. It was asking whether we are putting more energy into managing the visibility of homelessness than into actually ending it.
We can acknowledge complexity. We can acknowledge council’s responsibilities. We can acknowledge that some people need significant support before they can sustain a tenancy.
And we can still demand better.
Compassion and accountability aren’t opposites.
The measure of success shouldn’t be how effectively we move homeless people out of Wilks Park.
It should be how effectively we help people move out of homelessness. That is the point of the parody and that is the conversation I believe we should be having.
As volunteers, we cannot be expected to carry the responsibility for solving homelessness. Rather, we should be holding the people that can to account.
That responsibility sits with our elected representatives, well-resourced public services and the organisations funded to deliver services.
Volunteers can advocate, support, challenge and speak up. We can’t build the housing, change government policy or redesign the service system.
It is time for those with the resources, authority and responsibility to do better for their constituents and, most importantly, for the most vulnerable people in our community.
