TWO years have passed since the final residents left the Hunter's three major government-run residential centres for people living with disability - the Stockton Centre, Tomaree Lodge and Kanangra at Morisset.
Unsurprisingly, various welfare providers have looked longingly at the Stockton and Tomaree campuses, especially, and seen them as ideal places to provide temporary crisis accommodation at a time when the hardening economic times are adding to already heavy demand.
Our local state Labor MPs say they have raised these proposals, but been rebuffed by the government.
After visiting Port Stephens last week to attend a housing and homelessness summit at Medowie, Labor shadow housing minister Rose Jackson was at Stockton yesterday to lead a call for the reopening of Stockton and Tomaree.
Critics opposed to the controversial closure of Stockton argued it was a cynical land grab - a claim the state government continually denied.
Yet delays in building the replacement group homes meant that a masterplan for the site was in the public arena before the final residents had been moved off site.
The resultant "Fern Bay and North Stockton Strategy" overseen by Newcastle and Port Stephens councils imagines medium-density housing and "town centre" retail development on the Stockton Centre site, which sits between two Commonwealth-owned redevelopment prospects - the rifle range and Fort Wallace.
Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp was at pains to stress yesterday that using Stockton for emergency housing was a short-term proposal only.
Some of the NGOs would love to provide services there on a more permanent basis, but realpolitik means the bulldozers will arrive, sooner or later.
In the meantime, though, it is national Homelessness Week and the government should look at the proposal with a compassionate eye.
Demand for social housing will generally always outstrip supply but the wait in many parts of the Hunter - indeed, across the state - is 10 years or more.
Canberra is also involved, but the sheer demand for housing is proof a myriad of programs are not working properly.
At Stockton and Tomago we have dozens of empty buildings, and hundreds of beds. Their use would ease a genuine crisis.
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