Perth Voice Interactive

AN 11th-hour Cook government offer to fund Perth council’s “Safe Night Space” women’s shelter has been deemed too late to stop the closure, with lord mayor Basil Zempilas saying the building will be “returned to community use”.

In 2021 Perth council opened the SNS in the old Rod Evans Centre on Hay Street in East Perth, a stop-gap measure to provide shelter to women while awaiting more permanent state government housing solutions.

Costing the council about $4 million so far, it was initially due to close in April this year but councillors voted to extend the trial six months to November 30 at a cost of $724,000.

The council now wants to return it to its former use, advertising in October for expressions of interest from community groups who could use it as a meeting space. The centre would undergo some light maintenance and renovations and reopen by February 2024.

At the November 14 council briefing Mr Zempilas said he’d asked the state to help fund the centre a year ago.

 When no funding was forthcoming, he says “in February of this year council confirmed the safe night space would close on November 30. Everybody was given ample notice this closure was coming”.

The ABC reported on November 2 that homelessness minister John Carey said, “the state government wants to see the service continue in its East Perth location and is ready to assist”, but the official offer wouldn’t arrive for another week according to Mr Zempilas.

Mr Zempilas said “at 6pm last Friday [November 10]… just two weeks before the closure, I received a letter from minister Carey saying the state government was now prepared to provide funding to keep the centre operating.

“That offer came at the 11th hour,” he said.

“[The] community had long ago been informed that the Rod Evans Centre, as made clear at the outset of the two-year trial, would be returning to community use.

“It’s what our community told us they wanted. 

“Once some minor maintenance has been completed, beyond November 30 the Rod Evans Centre will return to community use.”

An online petition to “Save the Perth Night Space” was started on November 6, and currently has 1500 signatures and counting.

by DAVID BELL