Critics accuse Allan government of breaking election promise as shelter seeks new home

Kardinia Park’s old timber Past Players Stand was relocated from Geelong’s main stadium to a neighbouring oval back in 2008.

Local footy fans once cheered on their heroes from the stiff bench seating, but for much of this past week it’s been home to a pair of rough sleepers.

Amy Flint and Maggie O’Neill are board members of the Outpost, the only homelessness service providing no-questions-asked food, clothing and support every night in Victoria’s second-biggest city.

This week they’re sleeping rough, surviving on support services just like the one they run and learning about the day-to-day realities of life for those living on the streets.

Despite their already-deep understanding of homelessness in Geelong, there have still been some unexpected lessons.

“Our city isn’t set up to support the homeless,” Ms Flint said, sitting by her bag of sleeping gear received from one local support service a couple of nights earlier.

“When everything shuts down in the city at 9:30 at night, everything literally shuts down. There is no access to toilets, there is no hot showers after 10 o’clock in the morning, and water is so scarce around our city.”

The experience also reinforced the importance of support services such as their own.

“Our community is supported by predominantly volunteer-run, community-funded organisations, and it’s those people that are actually keeping people alive,” she said.

“But what we have discovered is there actually is nothing other than the Outpost in the evenings — you have one choice, and it is the Outpost.”

The Outpost left out in the cold

While the Outpost is the centre of support for those in need during evenings in Geelong, it has also become the centre of a political squabble — with the state government accused of breaking an election promise to find a new home for the charity.

The pledge was made by Daniel Andrews in 2022, after the Outpost faced the possibility of being forced to shut its doors.

Since 2000, the Outpost has supported its guests from a small corner of the Busport building in Geelong’s CBD — a 3,218sqm multistorey building comprising car parking and office space.

The space in the city-owned Busport building was given to the charity by the city on a “peppercorn lease” — a nominal payment typically as small as $1.

On a typical day, the charity provides hot meals, food to take away, clothing, bedding and other essential items to anywhere between 20 and 80 people across lunch and dinner services.

But amid a financial pinch in early 2022, the City of Greater Geelong decided to sell off the piece of prime CBD real estate to “help balance upcoming budgets” and reduce borrowings for key projects such as its shining new $102m civic headquarters — built just across the road from Busport.

Despite the sale leaving the Outpost out in the cold, the city did not find a replacement venue for the charity, leading to fears it would be forced to close.

Then, on November 15, 2022 — then-premier Daniel Andrews came to town during his state election tour of the state.

And with him, came a promise to save the Outpost.

“There is an issue, where we’ve got an outstanding homelessness service which may well become homeless,” Mr Andrews said.

“Now we don’t want that, so what I can commit to today, if we are re-elected we will provide $50,000, which is money to tide them over, and then Chris (Christine Couzens, Geelong MP) and I, relevant ministers, will work to find a permanent home for Outpost — and that will be free of charge.”

“We will put the full resources of the government on this, and will find a home for them, and it will be on that peppercorn rate.”

It was more than a lifeline for the Outpost — it was a promise to secure its future.

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While the $50,000 was delivered — along with another $52,000 earlier this year — the government has been unable to find a new venue for the charity, which has now been forced to sign a costly commercial lease as it receives its final marching orders from Busport by the end of December.

A typical commercial lease for a CBD space such as the one the Outpost is preparing to open is about $50,000 — while financial documents for the Outpost show its total annual operating expenses over the past four years have ranged from $20,000 to $50,000.

The government’s unfulfilled election pledge has been slammed as a “broken promise” by Polwarth MP Richard Riordan, who in 2022 had announced a matching pledge to save the Outpost as then-shadow housing minister.

“What’s worse, it’s a broken moral promise,” Mr Riordan said.

“To think that the government could stand there in the lead-up to the 2022 election and promise the most vulnerable in Geelong that they would help fix the security and supply of basic services, and then two years later still not even gotten close to solving the problem.

“This is not a negotiable promise for the Allan government. They made the promise, and they have given false hope to those that need hope more than anybody else. It’s not good enough.”

But the Outpost remains hopeful the state government will deliver on its promise to handover a free, permanent residence.

“We are really thankful for the support of the state government so far, in particular Christine Couzens who is an incredibly trusted advocate of ours,” Ms Flint said.

“We look forward to working together to secure an ongoing permanent venue in the future.”

Government doubles down on commitment to find the Outpost a new home

When contacted by the ABC, the state government did not say why it had so far been unable to fill its promise to the Outpost, but committed to continuing to “work with The Outpost to find a suitable location”.

But, the government did not respond to a question asking whether it would commit to fully funding the charity’s commercial lease until a permanent home is found.

Instead, ABC questions directed to the premier, or relevant minister, were responded to with a statement by an unnamed Victorian government spokesperson.

“Homes Victoria has conducted extensive consultation with the Outpost to understand its key site requirements and has worked with the Greater Geelong City Council to explore government land in the Geelong central business district and surrounding areas,” the statement noted.

“The Outpost independently proposed a commercial premise and separately entered a two-year term.”

Outpost service users such as Charlene Manno — who has come to Busport almost daily for the past decade — said there would be a gaping hole in the city’s support services if the charity was ever forced to shut.

“If this place closed, what’s gonna happen to the homeless?” Ms Manno asks.

“Are we gonna see them rot away? Are we gonna see them disappear? Like, what is it?

“What’s gonna happen?”