More than six months after it closed its doors amid a tense political row, a night refuge for vulnerable women escaping violence in Perth is expected to reopen within days.
It's been a long journey full of point scoring between state government ministers and the Perth Lord Mayor turned Liberal candidate Basil Zempilas.
All the while, vulnerable women – many of them fleeing domestic violence – have had one less place to go at a time when all other services are under immense strain.
Today, the state government has approved the Safe Night Space re-opening in Northbridge — but it's been a long, arduous journey to this point.
What is the Safe Night Space?
The service was started by Ruah with support from the City of Perth as a two-year trial in mid-2021 to give up to 30 women who had nowhere else to go shelter each night.
The set-up at the Rod Evans Centre in the CBD was really basic – with beanbags and mats instead of beds, for example – but it was a safe roof over people's heads for the night where they could link in with other services.
A woman who used the service described it as a "blessing" which kept her off the streets.
That two-year trial was later extended for six months to end in November 2023 to allow other homelessness services to open.
But even when those services were overwhelmed by demand, the City wouldn't move from the deadline.
What happened next?
From about a month before it closed, there was a lot of political pile-on from both sides.
Mr Zempilas insisted at the time it's what his community wanted, and cited complaints from nearby residents about anti-social behaviour.
He said he had asked the state government to fund the service into the future about a year earlier but they declined.
The government, and especially John Carey as Housing Minister, said the City of Perth had never formally requested that funding and it was on them to help address homelessness in the CBD.
Eventually the government did promise $3.1 million for the Safe Night Space, but Mr Zempilas said it was too late because the building it was running from had already been promised to the other local groups for their use.
Advocates warned the closure risked women being forced into dangerous situations on the streets.
"Just in the first week after the closure, [a] 60-year-old woman had nowhere to go, ended up locking herself in a public toilet overnight with her possessions," Michael Piu, who heads up St Patrick's Community Support Centre, said at the time.
"She was terrified of being out on the street [with] no alternatives available to her."
After the closure, Mr Zempilas suggested Uniting WA could take over the service, but the idea wasn't supported by the state government who wouldn't give them the funding.
It left the service without a solution which had both a location and funding.
When Ruah couldn't find anywhere else to run the service, it decided to try and run the Safe Night Space from its existing engagement hub on Northbridge's fringe.
But that move was tied up in planning bureaucracy before the proposal finally went to the City of Perth council to either reject or approve in February.
It's a process Mr Carey said was "unnecessary" because Ruah's use was "permitted" under planning laws.
Untangling bureaucracy
At the February meeting, Mr Zempilas acknowledged any rejection of that plan was almost certain to be overturned by the state government, and he decided to support the service before council imposed four conditions:
- Having a security guard outside at all times
- Ruah regularly engaging with neighbours
- Any measures to resolve issues being approved by the City of Perth
- The service being run to the "satisfaction" of the city.
Ruah felt those conditions provided "no certainty" about the future of the service and applied to the State Administrative Tribunal for review.
Mr Carey then used his powers to "call in" the decision and make it for himself, but handed it to cabinet colleague Amber-Jade Sanderson to avoid a perception of a conflict of interest.
Mr Zempilas had repeatedly criticised how long that process has taken and why it happened in the first place.
"Apparently, those conditions were untenable and so for 112 days the Safe Night Space, now into the month of June, [which is] cold, wet, is not providing the service that we've heard so consistently is so important. I find that almost impossible to believe," he told a council meeting on Tuesday.
That bring us to today
Ms Sanderson announced her decision on Friday morning – allowing Ruah to run the Safe Night Space from the Northbridge building until December 2026.
The two key changes are removing the need for a security guard outside and replacing the "satisfaction" of the city with the "approval" of Mr Carey.
The final bit is the key point because Ruah had been concerned about how the city would apply the rules.
The only conditions are that it operates in accordance with existing management plans to the satisfaction of the Minister, who will take advice from the city.
With the planning issue now out of the way and Ruah free of the conditions it had been concerned about, it's expected the shelter will open as soon as possible, and ideally within the next week.
"For these women, they come to us in a time of absolute crisis, with vulnerability and risk, and nowhere else to go," the organisation's executive manager services, Elsie Blay said.
"Although this service should have never closed its doors, we now are ready to go and begin the service again from this site."
After posting on X about the closure daily for the past 18 days, Mr Zempilas said he was "pleased to see this important service will be reopening".
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