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Hutt St Centre

Hutt St Centre pleads for people to stop verbally abusing the homeless given they have nowhere to go

Hutt St Centre chief executive Chris Burns said there were about 200 people sleeping rough in the city, and the State Government had not given a directive to house them in hotels like it did earlier in the year.

"One third of the people who came in didn't know about the lockdown — they don't have the luxury of a television or newspaper," he said.

He said when centre staff told them about the six-day lockdown, they were "very, very anxious".

"You could see the fear in their eyes," he said.

Mr Burns said homeless people who visited the Hutt Street Centre yesterday were "yelled at and abused" for not self-isolating.

"They don't have the luxury of having a home to self-isolate [in] and experience the lockdown. They don't watch TV, they don't read the newspaper so we have to explain things to them," he said.

"They haven't been put in hotels like the first lockdown — their belief is that it's a short six-day event so there's been no directive to take all rough sleepers off the street.

"It's a health emergency and we need to do all that's necessary."

 

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