ABOUT 100 Cathedral precinct community members heard from homelessness outreach centre advocates at an information seminar held at the Hanly Room in the precinct today.
The number of rough sleepers living around St Stephen’s Cathedral has steadily increased since January this year.
Brisbane auxiliary Bishop Tim Norton, who mediated the seminar, said this raised a lot of questions for the community who worshipped, volunteered and worked in the precinct.
He said it was a complex matter and Brisbane archdiocese wanted to hear from the community about it.
Bishop Norton said he was aware some people had expressed they felt unsafe and uncomfortable with the presence of an increasing number of people sleeping rough.
“That’s a good interface to work out what’s what – what’s the unsafe and what’s the uncomfortable because being private property we do have OHS concerns that we have to make safe working spaces for people,” he said.
He said there were people setting up homes in the precinct and it was often right outside the windows where staff worked.
“That’s okay up to a point, but if people are camping then life goes on and the necessities of life go on outside that person’s office window, and that’s not exactly ideal,” he said.
There were other challenges as well, he said, like having to repair bathrooms after damages and the presence of drugs on the cathedral grounds.
He said there was a unique opportunity to do something positive about the situation..
He said he was delighted at how many people had shown up to the seminar, saying it was encouraging to see.
St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland support services strategic manager Edwina Wagland said financial pressures like housing affordability and inflation had forced many people already under strain to slip into homelessness.
“We are experiencing a lot more people at risk of homelessness,” she said.
“This is why we will start to see a few more people move into some of these spaces.”
Emmanuel City Mission director Roby Curtis told the Cathedral precinct community members who felt unsafe or uncomfortable that their feelings were legitimate.
He said the standard for behaviour at ECM’s outreach centre was high and there were good reasons for that.
As a Christian people, he said, the teachings of Jesus were always central and the Church had to be like Pope Francis imagined – “to be a Church that is poor with the poor”.
He urged people to see the Church as a Church that is bruised, dirty and hurting from being amongst the streets its people as Pope Francis’ encyclical Joy of the Gospel said.
The speakers shared information about their support services and how community members could refer people in need to receive help.
