Wednesday 7 April 2010

Could this happen in Townsville?

Homeless people in Darwin have been given the opportunity to get a meal, haircut and even a pedicure at a free community event

Darwin is a city of some 70,000 people (about 44% the size of Townsville) and yet according to the Darwin City Council (as quoted in the article) they have about 3,000 rough sleepers or long grassers (the equivalent of our parkies) - about 50 times more than Townsville’s 60 or so

If Townsville's 'problem' was of the same order of magnitude as Darwin's, our parkie population would number about 5,000!

If Darwin City Council can recognise that “"Every … city is facing these sorts of problems of the number of people who are sleeping on the streets," how come Cr Dale Last and the rest of Council and our own member for Townsville can’t (see other posts here and here).

And how is it that Darwin can respond in such a positive way and all Townsville can rise to is talk of punitive action?  Puts us to shame really

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