I was appalled to read David Heilpern’s latest column urging police to persecute street campers (4 June). Our privileged professor of law fails to appreciate these opportunistic travellers might be making your coffee or doing those minimum wage jobs to fund their holiday.
Why has no one sought a better solution than harassment, bans, and fining travellers and homeless locals alike? Council has spent a fortune on signage prohibiting overnight parking but barely nothing on solutions. Council lock public toilets at night for no good reason.
The van and turd problem are completely self-inflicted.
Currently, there are three almost empty caravan parks in Brunswick Heads charging over $50 a night to park a van on public land – that’s a fairly expensive shit and shower in any language. Vans could be easily accommodated on the old Pacific Highway site next to Ferry Reserve which has been vacant and unused for almost two decades.
Government, business, and council have failed to provide access to affordable facilities. The solution is simple but no one is willing to drop their fees to accommodate needy locals or young travellers. Only the cashed-up are catered for in Byron Shire.
The socio-economic purging of our community is an ongoing war seeking to expel all the undesirable low-income locals and travellers. Sure, we’re not dropping bombs but we are persecuting people with cruelty and harassment and fines they can’t afford.
It’s just not good enough for our learned professor to offer no viable option, just fuck off or get fined. Even peasants have a right to visit our Shire.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
