Many of Katherine's rough sleepers will be back on the streets tonight as they are kicked out of temporary lockdown accommodation, prompting calls to address Katherine's housing crisis.
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People stuck in Katherine from out of town, or those without housing at all, were provided accommodation in local hotels during the town's COVID-19 lockdown.
However, with the lockout being lifted on Wednesday, those people are now trying to find somewhere else to sleep, or get back to their home communities.
Senior Case Manager at the Salvation Army Katherine Doorway Hub, Dean Jones, said they have been inundated with people today looking for support.
"It's all finished [the temporary accomodation period]...so we're just getting slammed," he said.
He said some clients have started going to the town's only homeless shelter, which only re-opened today, but he expects that will be full by the end of the day.
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"There will be [people out on the street], yeah," he said.
"It all goes down to there's no accommodation in Katherine to put anyone here even if they wanted to."
Katherine has been in the grips of a crisis-level shortage in both social housing and private accommodation for years.
Mr Jones said staff and agencies on the ground who had been delivering support during the outbreak in Katherine and the surrounding communities were burnt out.
"The staff and non government agencies delivering frontline support are doing amazing work. The vast majority of clients involved are fantastic but it's unfortunate that staff also have to deal with abuse and disrespect," he said.
"Many staff are fatigued and constantly put themselves at risk while tasked with keeping the community safe and delivering support and care."
Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the NT Government was "slowly" working on addressing Territory-wide housing problems.
"The problem we've got, is mobility, that we're constantly wrestling with," he said.
"We know that people move, the volume of people who choose to sleep rough can fluctuate wildly and creates difficulty where you put your housing.
"We do have an endemic overcrowding issue in the Territory, which is one of the reasons we have the billion dollar remote housing program that's rolling out. That has actually seen a consistent trend down now over multiple years, a reduction in overcrowding reduction, not solved."
He said he accepted that "we've got to do more for housing in the Territory."
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