There is more homelessness than is reported. Youth homelessness is on the increase. It’s complex in terms of the spectrum of issues; complex life circumstance dynamics that led to homelessness, including family violence and/or neglect of the needs of children, various socioeconomic disadvantage, the accumulation of conflict and isolation with the culminating anxiety perpetuating trauma. There is a firmament of uncertainties and they can become overwhelming with the crash into homelessness.
There are 300,000 homeless Australians, not nearly 120,000 as the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports. There are more than 180,000 families on the public housing waiting lists. There are more than 20,000 street present homeless, not the nearly 10,000 officially estimated.
The real story is there are a half million Australians living on the brink or in proximity to homelessness, touting of future Australian landscapes that catastrophically presently remain among Australia’s least discussed issues.
There are families on the streets or living out of cars; hundreds of families across the nation street present. During the last few weeks alongside my colleagues we’ve been assisting sixteen homeless families who are street present.
One homeless mother of four children reached out to me a few weeks ago. Her 14 -year-old daughter had attempted suicide, had been sexually abused by a predator known to the family. They had been in the toxic mix of domestic violence, had fallen behind in rent, were evicted from the public housing rental, had lived last year out of the family vehicle; mum with her two-year-old, eight-year-old, twelve and fourteen-year olds.
Life was painstakingly difficult, but the children attended school. Life is lonely, but mum keeps the family together. The suicide attempt was devastating, remains scary and what’s ahead remains harrowingly unknown.
The 14-year-old was fighting for life in hospital after her suicide attempt but at the rudimentary level has physically recovered and was discharged – back to mum, car, homelessness. We can argue forever for more hospital beds but hundreds more beds here and there can’t fix hospitals – there’s a hundred thousand more hospital beds needed across the nation if we insist on going down that line alone.
We’ve put this family up, paid for nearly three weeks accommodation at a lodge so that the mother has a best shot at trauma recovery for her 14-year-old. We’re supporting the family as best can and we’re hoping to secure a public housing rental for them.
But for the majority of the 15 other homeless families we’re supporting at this time, ranging from families of two children to seven children living on the streets, it won’t be anytime soon that a home is secured. Street life is one of deprivations, ignominies, a loss of faith in society, facing grim realities such as the risk to various violence and sexual predation. Sadly, babies are born onto the streets, people die on the streets, while our governments carry on as if homelessness is a fact that will always be with us but nations such as Finland which has pretty much put to an end street present homelessness by housing them proves kindly otherwise.
Silence is a violence that repugnantly betrays and leaves behind the most vulnerable. We should tremble for the future unborn, of whom more than ever before will live homeless and the majority less supported than today.
Of today’s officially recorded 117,000 homeless Australians, 20,000 are aged 12 years and less. The 180,000 families on Australian public housing waiting lists total more than 700,000 Australians, of whom 500,000 are children.
– The 16 homeless families are being supported by myself and colleagues from the National Indigenous Critical Response Service, the National Migrant Youth Support Service, the National Child Sexual Abuse Trauma Recovery Project and the First Nations Homelessness Project and from goodwill outside the formality of these projects… April 30 to May 2, there shall be a better than usual, a much more profound conference – The National Houseless and Homelessness Forum
How many homeless people could of helped from the money spent on Firer Works all over Australia on New Years Eve
Gerry, you always forget the biggest contingent of the homeless. We are not fleeing family violence or related trauma, we are not substance abusers, we do not lack skills or education, we are fantastic at budgeting our money, we keep clean houses, we solve problems, we may even polish our shoes, …and we hide. No-one knows we exist.
We are single white collar women who are homeless for one reason and one reason only. We do not earn enough money to pay rent. We have committed no crime. We just don’t get paid enough in this lucky country of ours.
Either we are too old or too sick or too disabled to work, and so need social welfare payments that we can sustain life on. Yes, sustain life on. Joke, isn’t it!
Or we look too old for anyone to want to employ us, so we remain chronically unemployed or under employed from 40, till we escape the Newstart abuser at 65. 25 years of debasement and torture For the last few years of that time, no-one will even talk to us about work, but we still have to jump through the hoops inflicted on us by our abuser – Centrelink – “jump through this meaningless hoop you disgusting freeloader” – us – “how high sir”? “How many times, maam?”
The lucky ones who can get work are employed as casuals in the lowest paid “women’s work” with unstable hours and uncertain and inadequate incomes. And guess what? If we want to retrain so that we can earn a decent wage, we find that the only training the government will subsidise is for those very industries where our labor is casualised and chronically underpaid. Retraining will solve nothing.
When homelessness crept up on us, we had no idea what was happening. We are proud women, proud of our ability to deal with anything, to cope with everything. When we find ourselves sidelined from this society, ejected, thrown out, for committing the crime of being underpaid, we don’t understand. “What have I done wrong?” “There must be something I can do right to fix this.” “This is one of the richest countries in the world isn’t it?” “The economy is booming isn’t it?” We just don’t understand what WE are doing wrong.
So for a few years we find resourceful ways to keep a lock between us and the outside world. For myself I tumbled from renting dumpy old houses, to renting granny flats, to converted garages, to sheds, to couch surfing, to a room in a boarding house – all the time imagining there was something I could do to fix this. Others wake up earlier than I did and use their last remaining dollars to buy a vehicle they can sleep in. They hit the road, and that vehicle becomes home. It protects from the rain and has a door you can lock.
During the years – and it is years, where we struggle to keep a roof over our head and a door that will lock, we do not call ourselves homeless. We do not put ourselves on the housing waiting lists, because women like us can always manage, can’t we? No we can’t, so eventually over this time, we do start to break down. Our bodies start to fail us, and the years of intolerable stress and fear take their toll on us both physically and emotionally. But you know what? You would still not identify us as homeless if you saw us in the supermarket. We still look after our clothes, our hair, we still look “cared for”. We are not rough sleepers, we are decent women who will always cope – until we stop coping altogether.
So eventually we admit defeat and try to put our names on the housing waiting lists, only to find that the housing workers do everything they can to discourage us. Sometimes they succeed, because women like us don’t put our names on public housing waiting lists, so we walk away again. But eventually, as our health continues to deteriorate, we force them to assess us for eligibility for public housing, at which time our need is so dire that we normally go straight onto the priority list – but even then they tell us we have a 5-10 year wait. What? Years still, to keep living this way? And then what? To be dumped in unsuitable accommodation we would never choose, surrounded by substance abusing and unpleasant men? What a future to look forward to. We are already no longer able to cope. We are already in too much pain. We have already been living for too many years without medical or dental care, without social support and by this stage, without friendships; and in a state of perpetual fear, shock and shame. We must stop! We must stay in one place for more than a few days or weeks.
Now, and only now, we start to identify as “homeless” and now you may look at us and maybe see a homeless woman with tatty clothes and unwashed hair. Once the pain gets too great, drugs. Once the depression gets too great, drugs. Once the only future is continued and sustained abuse, drugs. And because we are nice women, these will be legal pharmaceuticals or alcohol, but they are drugs nonetheless. And we all know where this story ends.
A tiny minority do get public housing, and then the next life drama starts. Public housing, as it currently stands, is no bed of roses, and still we are left reeling in shock as to what our future holds – if anything. But that is another story. We are lucky aren’t we, we have a roof over our heads. So be grateful!