OPEN LETTER TO THE LORD MAYOR, CITY OF MELBOURNE

Cr Robert Doyle
Lord Mayor
City of Melbourne

25th May 2016
Dear Cr Doyle,
My name is Josh Wilkins. I am the founder of One Voice for Aussie Youth Ltd.
Our charity provides hot showers, clean clothes, hygiene packs and friendships to some of the 105,237
Australians who will be homeless tonight. Most of our services are delivered in and around the City of
Melbourne out of our fully self-contained Mobile Shower Bus. We work alongside other service providers, to
be good corporate citizens and good stewards of the donations we receive from our generous supporters.
So youll understand that I was pretty upset on Friday last week, when your parking inspectors fined us.
We were parked in our usual spot a bus zone near City Square. Weve been here for months never
bothered by the many parking inspectors who walked by and considerate of the general public who we shared
the footpath with (actually most people stop to have a chat and commend the service).
But last Friday, Melbourne City Council gave us a choice: shut down the showers and leave immediately, or
stay and receive a $91 parking fine (because our bus isnt a public bus). 16 homeless people wanted a
shower that afternoon, so avoiding your fine would mean turning them down. So we stayed.
Im writing to you to explain why.
You see in 2012, I spent six months living on the streets of Melbourne with people experiencing homelessness.
I wanted to understand what people experiencing homelessness in our city faced on a daily basis; I wanted to
hear it from them directly, not from peak bodies, government reports or statistical spreadsheets.
The knowledge I took away from my sixth months on the streets with our homeless community was simple.
People wanted the opportunity to feel refreshed and clean, which in return restored their dignity. They shared
stories about being attacked in public toilets, being chased out of shopping centers and explained how some
of the facilities available were not in the best condition. People told me that our city lacked safe and clean
bathroom facilities where people experiencing homelessness could maintain basic personal hygiene, take a
hot shower, have a shave and brush their teeth. Pretty simple stuff really, that most of us take for granted.

So last year, with some generous support, we launched our Melbourne Mobile Shower Bus and with the help
of the NSW Government, were about to launch one in Sydney too (with council support). Our aim is to
develop long-term relationships with people experiencing homelessness, so that we can work with other
service providers to help people find pathways out of homelessness. Thats why our motto is:
Restoring dignity one hot shower at a time.
Our services are needed, they are enjoyed and our homeless community respects and appreciates the service.
We dont want your money. We dont want your resources. We just want you to allow us to do what we do
best and support us by working out a solution so the bus can park in the existing location (or another agreed
location). We are making some real progress and dont want to set this progress back in time.
So my request is, please work with us
(I have tried to contact your office on a few occasions now, but I just dont get any reply!).
Please dont give us the choice between providing hot showers, warm conservations and a little bit of
humanity or copping more parking fines.
In seven days time winter is here, so that choice, is really not a choice at all.
Please call me anytime to discuss this matter on 0488 ### ###

Kind regards,

Josh Wilkins

CC Cr Richard Foster
CC Cr Martin Foley
CC Hon Daniel Andrews