There is poverty in this nation that in general is hidden from the light of day but where the media and governments lend their lens to the acutest poverty, to the marginalised it is relayed as a portrayal of irreparable dysfunction. This is the case all too often with the portrayal of a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and families living below the Henderson Poverty Line. The poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable of the vulnerable are condemned by the chattering classes as irresponsible. The grim reality is that within the chaos of their poverty they try to look out for one another.

The poorest of the poor take in relatives and community members who are homeless despite the negative impacts on their nuclear families. Despite one’s own impoverishment, despite various suffering, despite their portrayal as dysfunctional by others they make great sacrifices. Their sacrifices bring them into conflict with the public housing rental and child protection authorities, with their neighbours, with the police.

There is a myth that is sold as an immutable cultural norm that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were not about nuclear families. It has been declared as ‘shame’ to turn away relatives and community members who are looking for somewhere to stay. The taking in of relatives and community members is a culmination of the last century and not a norm thousands of years old. It is a product of the apartheid policies of our governments, of the curfews in the cities and towns, of the crafted impoverishment – Stolen Wages and the Native Welfare Act – that led to segregation, shanty precincts, overcrowding.

But today this socioeconomic norm of the 20^th century continues with overcrowding damaging the dreams and hopes of nuclear Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. What hope for a family living in social housing, doing it hard quid-wise, having been brought up in poverty, trying to make a difference for their young when they believe that it is a ‘cultural’ norm to take in relatives and others? With some of the gate-crashing comes substance abuse and pronounced aberrant behaviour. All of a sudden the children do not go to school. Children who were attending school on average 95 per cent of the time drop to between 0 to 50 per cent school attendances.

The children are impacted by the aberrant behaviour of others while some soak it up as their lot. In supporting families through various issues I have ‘moved out’ the interlopers. It is not ‘shame’ to do this. One Noongar mother said to me, “No-one has ever told me before that it’s okay to turn them away.”

Another mother said, “I always thought it was what we had to do even though I just want to take care of my kids. I don’t want others here.”

A father said, “Thank you brother.”

A grandmother, who looks after not only her youngest children but also her grandchildren, said, “I know it’s not cultural but for many of us we feel we can’t turn them away, even if they’re addicts, even if they’re on the ‘needle’, because if we do turn them away then who else will help them?”

I care about everybody but there is a reality, kids come first. I care what happens to those who are homeless but they cannot be allowed to impact on any family, on the children. In the midst of aberrant behaviour some damage properties and then the reductionist policies of Department of Housing breach the family and all of a sudden they are at-risk of homelessness. The eviction rate of large families from public rental housing in Western Australia is a disgrace. Families of 10 and 11 children have been thrown on to the streets. This is an unacceptable price to pay to take in others. The reality is that the Department of Housing and child protection authorities will not budge on some of their criteria so therefore what is the point of risking losing your home and your children?

No nuclear family should take in adults who destabilise the home life and dim the potentialities for the children. Word must spread that in fact the ‘shame’ is in adults crashing into homes where there are children. There is no shame in saying ‘no’. In fact it has to be a must-do. It’s one thing to humbug and another to destabilise. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population that does not live below the Henderson Poverty Life does not take in relatives and community members. Governments need to address the shortfall of public housing and of emergency accommodation and short-stays. One in four of Australia’s homelessness is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders despite they comprise less than 3 per cent of the national population. Half of Perth’s homelessness is of Aboriginal peoples, that’s a disgrace – never enough has been done to address this. The majority of Australians maybe surprised to know that also nearly one in three of Australia’s homeless are of migrants.

I have travelled to hundreds of homeland communities and I know that taking in relatives and community members is not the way it was but rather a more recent socioeconomic phenomena.

The Stolen Wages led to impoverished Black folk turning to one another. Indentured Aboriginal pastoral workers corralled themselves on the estates of the pastoralists who remunerated the work all too often in flour, tea, sugar and some hand-me-downs. Today, around 40 per cent of the nation’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population remain below the Henderson Poverty Line. The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living above the Henderson Poverty Line earn a reasonable quid. In 1970 there was not a doctor in Australia identifying as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Today there are more than 200 doctors identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, with more than 300 more on the way. If families living below the Poverty Line are to have any shot at knocking up positive legacies for their children they need to keep out others.

As a toddler and young child, the eldest child in a large migrant family, my parents opened our home to relatives and their families that they grew up with as children on an island village on the other side of the world. My migrant parents came from poverty and so too these families, the taking in of others was a socioeconomic issue. There was good and bad in this – sometimes we were deprived of various attention and assistance. We were compartmentalised. This was the lot of poor working class migrants. But with impoverished Aboriginal households taking in impoverished others it often comes with complete chaos. I will cop various criticism, nothing new here, but I am at the coalface daily. I am not moving on people because I want to but because if I don’t then what hope for the children?

It is not true that the taking in of relatives and others is a ‘cultural norm’ and it is not true that this is the way it always was. Nor should it be today.