Yvonne Dunn fears it will be women and children left most at risk, as Darwin's largest short-stay accommodation facility is forced to close this weekend with no city-based replacement.
The 400-bed YiSSA shelter, which has been operating at capacity with a waiting list, is closing after the Northern Territory government rejected a financial rescue offer from the federal government to keep it operating.
Instead, the NT government has asked YiSSA residents to move 100 kilometres away from Darwin and its services, to the outskirts of an outback town.
The tiny town of Batchelor, with a population of about 370, has one general store and no access to public transport.
Ms Dunn, a caseworker for women fleeing violence, is among those pleading with the NT government to accept the federal government's offer, or at least push out the closure date beyond the Top End wet season.
"My concern is what will happen to the children and the mothers and the grandmothers and the aunties?," Ms Dunn said.
"Because as we all know, in Indigenous society, child-rearing is a shared responsibility."
Ms Dunn warned "trouble is coming", as women who move to Batchelor will be unable to access domestic violence legal services, court and appointments.
"They'll never get their children back, because they can't meet the requirements of the reunification plan with the Department of Children and Families," Ms Dunn said.
"They won't be able to exercise their legal rights and get restraining orders."
She said the NT government's handling of the YiSSA negotiations and the hasty closure of the shelter was "worse than the 2007 Intervention".
"At least with the Intervention you had resources attached to it," Ms Dunn said.
"The saddest thing is we are putting more layers on our most vulnerable people and we're going to stress them out even further."
The move has also cut residents off from Darwin's Aboriginal health service, Danila Dilba.
"We're concerned about the 250 clients that we have, who have their address registered at YiSSA," Danila Dilba's chief executive Rob McPhee said.
"They will no longer be able to access our services from Batchelor, we do not provide transport down there.
"That includes women and children who are escaping violence or domestic violence situations — we had 34 individual clients that our family and domestic violence service was supporting at YiSSA over the last 12 months."
Mr McPhee said an early intervention program called Early Steps Together, which has supported women at risk of family violence, was among the services they would no longer be able to provide.
The NT government has not responded to questions about what supports will be available in Batchelor for families fleeing domestic violence, including transport options for residents who do not have cars.
Many residents 'will not go'
YiSSA has been used by remote Aboriginal community residents in town for medical treatment or other appointments, the city's homeless population, and families fleeing violence.
There remains confusion about what has motivated the closure.
In a statement to the ABC, an NT government spokesperson said "long-standing concerns" about YiSSA from residents in nearby suburbs had fed into the decision.
NT Children and Families Minister Robyn Cahill has distanced herself from that reasoning, citing an unworkable proposal from the federal government.
Mr McPhee said Danila Dilba's clients had told staff they "will not go" to Batchelor because it was too far away from Darwin-based services.
"So people are going to continue to come to Darwin and they're going to need somewhere to stay," he said.
"People are going to be living rough or they're going to be putting pressure on family households, and we know that pressure is already starting to be seen in suburbs like Karama and Malak."
"I'm worried that the closure of YiSSA is just going to see those overcrowding conditions get worse and that's going to roll into more antisocial behaviour and potentially higher rates of crime, and this is all avoidable."
Mr McPhee said people staying at YiSSA were there because they had no other safe accommodation options.
"There's access to schools, there's access to support services, there's access to healthcare like our clinics [in Darwin]," he said.
"That all goes when that facility is closed and it's going to be replaced with whatever supports are in Batchelor, which we know are very few."
"The homeless issue is in Darwin, we need short-stay accommodation here — the Northern Territory is in a housing crisis and Darwin has a homelessness crisis."
Promise not to shift 'medically vulnerable'
Fiona Dhawunymymurruwuy is one of many former YiSSA residents who have described the shelter as a welcoming and secure place, where women, children and medically vulnerable people felt safe and respected.
"YiSSA was like home to me, where there was a lot of Aboriginal people and a lot of people that I know, relatives in YiSSA — it was like a community to me," she said.
"I felt connected, like they were my countrymen, my people.
"The security there, they protect the adults and the kids — no one goes out unless there's adults for the kids."
Ms Dhawunymymurruwuy lived at YiSSA for one year, after coming to Darwin from Arnhem Land's Milingimbi community for dialysis, which she requires several times a week.
During that time, she secured herself a job assisting with Yolŋu language at a local primary school but became too unwell to continue.
She is currently in hospital rehabilitation after requiring a leg amputation and is due to be discharged later this month.
"They said to me, 'If we discharge you, where do you have to go?,'" Ms Dhawunymymurruwuy said
"I said, 'I don't have a house, I don't have a home because YiSSA, where I stay, it's closing and there's no choice for me'.
"They were good, they looked after us, they did what's best for us — so at this moment, it's too hard for me, where can I go?"
The NT government has said that "medically vulnerable" people will not be shifted to Batchelor and that correspondence recently provided to the ABC about its exploration of dialysis options in Batchelor was a "miscommunication".
The ABC has made several requests to the NT government for information about where YiSSA residents who need dialysis will be accommodated, and has been told "no resident who needs medical care will be left without a way to reach it".
At a recent press conference, the NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro was asked directly where medically vulnerable residents would be accommodated, but did not provide details.
"We on a number of occasions have to provide emergency care to people in Darwin and so these plans are already stood up, we did it all through the flood and cyclone events, it's a very normal practice for government," Ms Finocchiaro said.
For the other remaining residents, Ms Finocchiaro said: "People who are homeless, who would like to continue to receive homeless services, will move out to that facility — if they don't, that's really a matter for them".
Mr McPhee said he had concerns about last-minute arrangements being made for dialysis patients and other unwell residents at facilities like Darwin hotels.
"They need to access dialysis three times a week to stay healthy and if they don't access those services, they become unwell, and that's going to put more pressure on the hospital system," he said.
"Dialysis patients are high risk — if we've got people living rough or living in overcrowded situations here in Darwin, their risk of getting some type of infection, ending up in hospital or dying increases significantly."
The federal government's YiSSA rescue offer included a condition that Aboriginal corporation Yilli Rreung Housing, which has been managing the YiSSA shelter, be awarded a long-term contract to continue its operation.
Yilli Rreung Housing has not had its contract renewed, and Mission Australia, which the NT government said would be providing "wraparound services" at Batchelor, told the ABC on Wednesday it was still in negotiations about a "potential service agreement" for the smaller 150-bed site.
