By Goya Dmytryshchak and Miki Perkins
More than 20 residents of Hobsons Bay Caravan Park are pleading for more time to find homes as demolitions take place around them.
The Williamstown North park in Kororoit Creek Road is closing after the prime site was sold and rezoned for a three-storey, 108-dwelling development.
But with the closure goes housing for some of Melbourne’s most vulnerable low-income residents, who had been paying $130 a week, plus outgoings.
Housing advocates say many of the caravan park’s former residents could end up sleeping rough in Melbourne’s CBD. Some have moved to other caravan parks. Most have accepted places in rooming houses or emergency accommodation.
“Each closure of a caravan park means one less option of last resort,” says Jenny Smith, the head of the Council to Homeless Persons.
“This explains why we’re seeing more people sleeping rough on our streets.”
The 120-odd residents have been given notice, but 24 are this month scheduled to appear before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to plead for extra time. A hearing listed for last Wednesday was adjourned until Monday.
About 20 per cent of residents were deemed “high-risk” because of age or health, and have managed to secure public places, catapulted to the top of the 30,000-strong waiting list.
