The West Australian police minister, Liza Harvey, has blamed the prevalence of homeless people in the Perth CBD on charities not “doing their jobs properly”, after a government department was forced to back down from a decision to put anti-homeless sprinklers around an arts centre.

St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation army criticised the decision to install the motion-sensing sprinklers in an outside stairwell frequently used as shelter by homeless people as “inhumane” and “inappropriate”, causing the arts centre to turn off the tap just five days after it was installed.

The head of the WA Department of Culture and the Arts, which runs the King Street Arts Centre, has taken responsibility for the sprinklers, which he said may not be “the most appropriate choice.”

But Harvey told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday she thought using sprinklers was “really mean” and she was “appalled that a strategy like that was being used”. But she also said the sprinklers would not have been needed if charities and not for profit groups were doing their job.

“The accommodation is there, the support services are there, the not-for-profit groups are there, the money’s flowing into the system,” she said, according to a report by the ABC.

“Clearly if there’s homeless people sleeping on King Street, those people aren’t doing their jobs properly.”

The $3,000 sprinkler system was installed in Munster Lane, an alley off King Street, on Friday. It was turned off on Tuesday after Channel 9 News showed pictures of the the heavy spray which had soaked people trying to gain shelter in the alley.



Duncan Ord, director general of the department, said the eight of the arts centre’s 10 tenants complained about anti-social behaviour from a group of men sleeping in the alley, and the sprinklers were installed following consultation with the City of Perth and WA Police after efforts to encourage the group to take up homeless support services failed.

Ord said anti-homeless sprinklers had been used internationally – most notably by St Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, which was criticised for turning the water on vulnerable people – and said the sprinklers were only supposed to be a light mist to make the area uncomfortable for people sleeping rough.

Perth’s hidden homeless. Film by Jane Hammond Guardian

“It’s clearly, from the photographs I have seen (broadcast on Channel 9), a spray, which is not the specifications that I thought we had asked for,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

Ord said the sprinklers were an effort to deter “anti-social behaviour”, including urinating in the alley and drug use, from the centre, which houses Ausdance Western Australia, the Contemporary Dance Company of Western Australia and the West Australian Youth Theatre Company, among others.

“Largely the people accessing the building are girls and young women aged between 7 and 20, so our concern was the safety for them,” Ord said.

“If this is a system outside an education facility I don’t think the public would have any problem with the department of education taking reasonable steps to ensure that the problem didn’t continue.”

Ord said a sprinkler system was chosen as a deterrent because of the need to keep the area clear to access a fire hydrant located under the stairs.

“It’s a question of what is the most appropriate choice in the circumstances, if this is not the most appropriate choice I take responsibility for that,” he said.

Mark Fitzpatrick, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society of WA, said the sprinklers were not signposted and “would have drenched anyone sitting underneath it.”

You wouldn’t do that to your dog, you wouldn’t do that to a fellow human being Mark Fitzpatrick, St Vincent de Paul

“You wouldn’t do that to your dog, you wouldn’t do that to a fellow human being,” he said.

Fitzpatrick told Guardian Australia that even if the system had have worked as intended, it would not have been appropriate.

“Even a mist on a day like tomorrow when it’s going to be 2 degrees in the morning, if you’re sleeping and having that water on it would not be comfortable,” he said.

It’s the second time in a 15 months that Perth has been criticised for its approach to its homeless population. Last year the City of Perth petitioned the Barnett government to introduce laws to criminalise begging, which advocates warned would push vulnerable people into the justice system.

Fitzpatrick said that addressing homelessness required a more nuanced approach than just offering services and expecting people to be in a position to take them up. He said that some people, particularly those that have been on the streets for a long time, were distrustful of people trying to move them into homes and may not be comfortable in those spaces.

“There’s a whole range of different reasons why people may be homeless and what we really need to do as a community is treat them with respect and dignity and acknowledge that they are there,” he said.

“I don’t think necessarily we’re taking enough time to work out what the reservations would be.”

Even without personal misgivings, Perth doesn’t have the capacity to house its entire homeless population. There are an estimated 10,000 homeless people in Perth, and 22,000 applications – 43,000 people, in total, on the state’s public housing waiting list. One crisis accommodation facility in the city was recently closed.



Non-profit service providers are also feeling the pinch – donations to the Salvation Army were down $500,000 in the 2014-2015 financial year, and St Vincent de Paul has seen its fundraising income fall by about 25%.

Warren Palmer, spokesman for the WA branch of the Salvation Army, said that while he understood there were “tensions” between businesses and homeless people, using sprinklers as a deterrent was “a bit excessive.”

Palmer told Guardian Australia that outreach workers from the Salvos approached a group of about half a dozen males sleeping in the alley the weekend before the sprinklers were installed, but that they chose “not to engage” with the charity’s services.

“Whilst we would accept from time to time that some minor deterrents may need to be put in place to ensure a safe environment for those using the arts facility, we would not see a harsh sprinkler spray being an acceptable response,” he said.

“And with crisis accommodation at full capacity there is little option other than sleeping on the streets.”