Tent City bin ban “lacks decency”
Published in the Perth Voice, November 26, 2020.
PERTH council has refused to provide bins for homeless people living in Tent City, forcing them to live amongst mounds of rotting rubbish.
Tent City resident Raymond said the council’s repeated knockback to requests for a skip bin lacked “basic human decency”.
“The people here want to live somewhere that is clean and healthy,” he said.
“They’re doing what they can but there’s nowhere for the rubbish to go”.
Raymond says the city’s hardline stance was in contrast to it’s April decision to send in rubbish removal to clean up the camp – during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown.
“They’ve removed rubbish from that spot at the end of Aberdeen Street before,” he said.
“It’s not too much to ask; it would improve their sense of themselves and their wellbeing if we could get rid of this rubbish”.
The bin ban comes after the council ordered the Salvation Army to stop mobile food deliveries to Tent City, saying they had no approval.
Earlier this month the council approved a $575,000 refit to 160 Hay Street, East Perth as a Safe Night Space for women.