By Lachlan Abbott and Cara Waters
Collingwood residents fear the impact a new sobering-up centre will have on their neighbourhood, claiming the state government announced the facility without consulting them.
But the community health provider that will run the 20 bed centre said it would save lives and ease the burden on emergency services.
Sharie Harrold lives across the road from the site for the sobering-up centre in Collingwood. Credit: Joe Armao
The Age revealed on Friday that Victoria’s first sobering-up centre would be at 3 Cambridge Street, a former aged care home.
A furious Sharie Harrold, who lives across the road from the site, said her street was home to young families and was in a quiet part of Collingwood.
“Scant detail, zero consultation, zero communication,” said Harrold, a mother of two teenagers. “What does it mean for the value of my property? For my safety? For my children?
“It’s absolutely disgraceful. And a blatant abuse of power and disregard for being in a democratic system.”
Francesca Rush, who has four children aged between one and 11 and lives opposite the proposed centre, spent Friday morning in tears.
She said was “devastated” after her husband called with the news.
“We will no longer be able to use this street with my young children. [They] learnt to ride their bikes up and down this street,” Rush said, adding she was also disappointed to not be consulted.
“I would be more comfortable with it attached to a hospital in some sense,” she said. “I’m not a policymaker, all I know is I don’t think it’s great for our street and … our community.”
The centre’s operator, cohealth, and the City of Yarra council were both only informed of the government’s decision on Thursday. The centre is expected to open before public drunkenness is decriminalised on November 7, which is Melbourne Cup Day.
When asked about residents’ concerns, cohealth deputy chief executive Christopher Turner said people who were taken to the centre from across metropolitan Melbourne would be supported by staff and would not leave until they were sober, part of a health-first approach to public drunkenness.
“A police cell is not the right place for a drunk person,” Turner said.
Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly said the sobering-up centre was badly needed, but that residents felt they had been kept in the dark.
“They just woke up to this announcement,” he said. “They want to know why they were not consulted about the sobering-up centre. They want to know why [it] was not placed at St Vincent’s [Hospital] just down the road.”
Jolly said it was “helicopter policy” by the state government, which had failed to consult the local community.
“They’re good people. No one in their right mind could argue against this idea. It’s just handled so secretively, so amateurishly, they are just absolutely guaranteed people will get their pitchforks out.”
Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said did not “fill you with confidence” that the centre’s operator had only just found out about it.
“They are going to need a good builder,” he said. “Good luck to them if they can get it up and running in 95 days.”
Turner said the service would be ready in time.
“We have experience during COVID of setting up vaccination clinics over a weekend,” he said.
Mental Health Minister Gabrielle Williams on Friday dismissed concerns the centre would not be ready to open its doors in three months.
“Collingwood is a government-owned site that simply requires some fit out and refurbishment, so we’re confident that we can get that construction work done in time and the builder has been appointed and that work will very soon be underway,” she said.
Gatt said the sobering-up centre still left police with many drunk people to deal with because it required people to agree to go.
“For those that say no, that remain a risk to themselves or their community and are not committing criminal offences, police won’t have the power to deal with them as they did in past days or previous times. That’s the gap,” he said.
Williams said the service would have “more of a homey feel than a clinical feel”.
“There are places for people to obviously sleep and get the rest they need, but I believe that there’s also coffee and tearooms and shared kitchen spaces ... facilities like that.”
The principal of the Collingwood English Language School, which is directly across the road from the site of the sobering-up centre, declined to comment.
Williams said the government was in discussions with providers as it prepared to roll out similar services across regional Victoria.
“But we’re confident that we’ll be ready to decriminalise [public drunkenness] in November this year and to provide people the support that they need in those circumstances.”
The location for the government’s first sobering-up centre at 3 Cambridge street in Collingwood. Credit: Joe Armao
The government said a dedicated sobering-up service for First Nations people would also be established.
The sobering-up centre is part of the Victorian government’s move to decriminalise public drunkenness after it passed landmark legislation in 2021, a reform triggered by the death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, and an acknowledgement the laws disproportionately impacted Indigenous people.
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