Hundreds are sent into isolation in government-booked hotel rooms in remote northern WA, while others are forced to bunker down in houses with up to 18 people.
"I don't know where we'll go after this," she sobs.
The ABC has confirmed hundreds of people are being relocated by bus or plane to a network of government-booked hotel rooms across regional towns in a strategy that's highlighted the chronic overcrowding and housing shortage in many Aboriginal communities. The Yawuru woman had public housing, but says she accrued big rental debts after fleeing domestic violence with her children."At the hospital I asked for help, but they didn't seem to know what to do with me and told me to come back the next day," she said.
The WA Government has rented rooms at Derby's King Sound Hotel to house COVID positive homeless people. "We’ve pushed for people to be put into hotels where it's appropriate, purely so they can be looked after better, particularly for the homeless," she said. "Part of the reason people need to be taken to hotels is the terrible overcrowding we've got and poorly maintained houses and that's been an issue for 20 years."It will be very interesting to see if anything changes from this."Some community leaders say the hotel program has been disorganised and poorly executed.The Department of Communities has had to bring in security guards to supervise budget hotel rooms in Broome where COVID-positive people keep roaming outside.
"There's not much evidence of long-term planning. The housing situation has been known about for year, and nothing's being done towards fixing it when we've known about COVID-19 for more than two years now."
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