The City of Fremantle is encouraging visitors to donate spare change to secure collection stands in the Fremantle Central Business District (CBD).
The soon-to-be-installed collection boxes form part of a new community safety initiative to direct funds to support services for homeless people and away from street beggars, many of who are opportunistic and not genuinely homeless.
The Donate without doubt campaign; a joint collaboration between the City of Fremantle, Western Australian (WA) Police, St. Patrick’s Community Support Centre and Community Newspaper Group, is committed to helping those in genuine need by diverting funds to St. Patrick’s Community Support Centre in Fremantle to provide more services and encourage homeless people to seek support.
Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said the initiative was necessary to ensure donations were reaching people in genuine need to help improve their lives in the long-term.
“Begging is one of those sensitive, complex issues that’s difficult to address and is a problem in cities all over the world. Having secure collection points allows people who donate to be comfortable their donations reach the people who need it most.
“There are many people in our community doing it tough who often turn to begging as a source of income. The Fremantle community is very generous, but unfortunately our famous generosity is too often taken for granted by a number of opportunistic beggars on our streets who falsely claim to be homeless.”
The initiatives form part of the City’s renewed zero-tolerance approach towards nuisance and anti-social behaviour such as opportunistic begging, public drinking and other forms of threatening behavior. These issues were identified as being a priority for the community in the City’s 2015 community perceptions survey.
“The community has asked us to do something about this issue [opportunistic begging], so along with the community’s donations, the City will match all funds collected dollar-for-dollar to provide even more support to where it’s needed.”
The Donate without doubt initiative is one of several City of Fremantle Community Safety & Crime Prevention – New Initiatives 2015–16, developed by the City’s community safety working group.
Mayor Pettitt added, “I’d like to thank our partners in this initiative; WA Police, Community Newspaper Group and St Patrick’s Community Support Centre as well as the Community Safety Working Group for turning the idea into a reality.”
