Broken Hill council rejects homeless charity's request for land

Broken Hill City Council has informed a local food charity that there is no council land available to build a homeless camp, despite the charity's request for a block of land or an unused building to establish a base for homelessness services.

Feeding Friends had sought a location to provide a range of services, including a food outlet, laundry facilities, and a transitional camp for those experiencing homelessness in the mining city.

"Initial findings is there is no land," Mayor Tom 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," he added.

The charity said it was responding to an "urgent need for secure, stable spaces" in Broken Hill, where those experiencing homelessness could set up temporary and safe shelters.

Demand for the charity's services is increasing, with Feeding Friends president Don Barron saying that the need for its services has grown amid the cost-of-living crisis.

"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."

Mr Barron attributed the growing demand to a lack of housing and affordability, with the cost of living "just gone out of control".

Derwent Coshott, a senior lecturer in law at Sydney University, said that establishing a transitional campsite would require planning approvals, but noted that there was another pathway through a policy of non-enforcement.

"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.

Dr Coshott suggested that Feeding Friends could ask the council to not enforce the law against them, but noted that this approach carried risks.

"The risk is, of course, that none of this means that the law might not be enforced against them later on," he said.

Dr Coshott also noted that 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.

"That basically tells you where the problem is, in the sense that there is no real proper legal framework to address homelessness in these circumstances."

For Mr Barron, who has personal experience of sleeping rough, addressing homelessness requires a collaborative approach from all levels of government.

"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."