By AIDAN KNIGHT
MOE’S Community Hub in High Street is becoming increasingly concerned as the lack of income is causing the hub to close.
The Life Skills Victoria-affiliated community venue provides versatile spaces for community and commercial use, including training sessions, business meetings, seminars, and creative performances.
Last month, the High Street Community Hub issued an online update that, from Monday, May 18, no community groups will be operating from the space, and no bookings will be taken for the space by any interested groups either.
Those affected say the announcement blindsided them, ending what they describe as a thriving, inclusive hub built up over the past 12 months.
Regular participant Trish Ainsworth, who had previously drafted a detailed statement about the hub’s situation, said the shutdown came after a year of strong growth in community use.
“It’s an all-age community hub that has had, under the Teagan (hub coordinator Teagan Brooks) stewardship, gone from practically nothing 12 months ago to now this really vibrant community that we’re all incredibly invested in and absolutely love,” Ms Ainsworth said.
Groups using the hub include a dog-walkers group, a three-to-five kilometre Wednesday walk, chair-based exercise, playgroup, a coffee and chat group, a craft group, and a multicultural community garden.
“There was a $15,000 grant for a community, multicultural community garden”, Ms Ainsworth said.
“We’ve built this garden, we’ve donated a lot of our own time and money, and we’re going to be basically locked out of it, told to find somewhere else.”
She said the hub had become a place that supported social connection, mental health and physical wellbeing.
“In a world where we’re talking about loneliness in old age, disconnection, poor mental health, poor physical health … this place has been building this big web of connections,” Ms Ainsworth said.
Another regular at the hub, Marlene Mitchell, said volunteers had not only created new spaces on the premises, such as the garden, but also improved existing ones.
People say the hub’s activities sit alongside NDIS-funded life skills programs run by Life Skills Victoria for people with cognitive and some physical disabilities, using a long-term grant intended to create an “intentional community” at the site.
Several people told the Express they had only recently learned, at a public question-and-answer session a month before the announcement of closure, that Life Skills Victoria had been losing substantial amounts of money over multiple years.
One attendee said the Q&A night was the first time they had heard of significant losses, and claimed there had been no clear visibility of the organisation’s finances to stakeholders.
“We don’t have any evidence of dodgy behaviour because we can’t get the evidence,” one speaker told the meeting.
“That Q&A evening was the first we knew of the money being lost.”
Others questioned what had been tried to keep the community side of the operation running.
“We did ask the question, what’s been tried to save the community half of the hub, and there was no satisfactory answer to that,” Ms Ainsworth added.
“It was basically, ‘Oh, we’re looking for somebody to merge with us.’ Who’s going to take something like this on?”
Some participants said they would have been willing to pay modest annual subscriptions, help with revenue-raising initiatives or formally volunteer to support NDIS programs, but felt those offers had not been taken up.
Local resident Tony Zimora also raised questions about specific grant-funded activities, such as exercise programs, and the lack of clarity about how those funds had been used.
“We won’t go quietly,” Ms Mitchell said.
“We’re not just little old grannies – and we want them to know that,” Ms Ainsworth added.
Latrobe City Council Moe Ward Councillor, Adele Pugsley, attended the Q&A meeting after the community hub reached out for help – only to learn there wasn’t much council could do.
“It was also a bit of a shock because the deadline was made so quick,” she told the Express.
“I feel like there wasn’t a lot of time for community groups to absorb the impact that this was going to have.”
Cr Pugsley became focused within council to help find new homes for as many groups within the hub’s programming as possible.
“The gardening club has found a new home in the (Latrobe Valley) Beekeepers Association, and that looks like it’s going to be a rather beneficial collaboration between the two,” she said. “They may end up with something better, but for the others, I hope that we can find something as good as (what was previously had).”
One of the groups still struggling to find a new collaborator and space is the chair Zumba group.
Cr Pugsley is also conscious that “it just won’t feel the same”, citing how beneficial the existing program was for many demographics to engage with and support each other, and to take that away and “return to a society where everybody’s segregated, it feels like a real step back”.
As hub organisers scramble to relocate programs and preserve the connections built inside the High Street space, many fear the closure of the hub represents more than the loss of a venue. To them, it will be the dismantling of a rare community network in Moe.
While some groups may survive in new locations, regulars say the sense of belonging fostered under one roof will be difficult to replace, with uncertainty still hanging over what future, if any, remains for the Community Hub itself.
