About a dozen people from the disbanded homeless tent city in Martin Place are again sleeping rough in Sydney just days after striking a deal for more suitable accommodation.
Lanz Priestley, who's been dubbed the 'Mayor of Martin Place', said 16 people of the camp's approximately 60 residents had found shelter with friends or Facebook associates, but about 12 were sleeping rough again in various places around the CBD.
However, public housing minister Pru Goward said on Monday every person who had been sleeping rough in the tent city had been offered permanent or temporary accommodation.
"People who have been sleeping rough for a year or two, or more, are often very difficult to engage with, they don't really want to talk to us," Ms Goward told reporters in Sydney.
"I say to people who left Martin Place and went back to the streets, 'you know we're there to help you, you saw us for five months there, 50 times working with your colleagues, your friends, with your neighbouring tent people'."
Mr Priestley said the group ran into problems accessing their belongings on the weekend despite an agreement that it would be available to them round-the-clock after being taken to a council depot.
But the City of Sydney said its Director of City Operations had spoken with Mr Priestley, who indicated he was happy with the arrangement.
Mr Priestley said some people who had been offered accommodation found it unacceptable.
One man declined an "absolutely putrid" property that was cockroach-infested and had discoloured water coming out of the taps, Mr Priestley said.
But the Department of Family and Community Services rejected the claim of unclean accommodation.'
"FACS refutes allegations, made without any evidence being provided, that the accommodation is not clean," a department spokesman said in a statement.
The spokesman said one of the tent city members who claimed to media he had been provided no furniture, had previously complained to FACS that the furniture he was provided with was not comfortable.
He also complained a television he had been delivered was not unpacked and set up by the delivery person, FACS said.
FACS say 95 homeless people from the tent city have been offered permanent housing, with 88 accepting the offer.
Mr Priestley said their long-term plan was to find a building where the group could offer expanded services, such as a kitchen, like they did in Martin Place.
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