On every street corner in the heart of Sydney – Photo, Gerry Georgatos
What sort of nation is Australia when a struggling family’s Christmas wish was for 13 blankets, for their 13 children? Australia is one of the world’s most affluent nations per capita, the world’s 12th largest economy but the extensiveness of large homeless families on our streets is little known to most Australians. Families of 5, 6, 7, 8 children are indeed all too common on our streets – sleeping in alleyways, parks, condemned squats and traps, in cars, in tents in isolated locations. They move around to avoid the reality of the streets – the various violence and sexual predation. Indicators of government failures are those who address what government departments are heavily resourced and set up to do. With the Department of Housing it is a slow crawl to the building of social housing, affordable homes and emergency accommodation. The slow crawl ensures that the unmet need increases. Supply abysmally fails to match demand.
Over the years I have housed a number of homeless individuals and families. The Department of Housing and the various agencies that pull in government funding to accommodate people should take a leaf out of my book and of my partner, colleague, Jennifer Kaeshagen who also coordinates the volunteer based First Nations Homelessness Project. We do not give up on finding accommodation for homeless families.
A homeless family of six young children were known to every government agency and many parliamentarians, to nearly every agency in the homelessness sector for nine months before I was made aware of them. I was contacted by a parliamentarian to see if I could help them out. They were living out of two tents in bush just off a major highway in a northern suburb of Perth. The children were taken to school each day without fail by the father and grandmother who then waited nearby the school at a shopping mall to take the children back to their homeless shelter. Nine months! (Note, the ABC articles below suggest they were homeless for five months but in fact it was the nine months). Within ten days of learning about them, meeting them, delivering care packages, I was able to house them. In the nine months no agency or charity delivered a care package, nothing.
Over the years, particularly while I was at Murdoch University as the General Manager of the Student Guild and as the coordinator of Students Without Borders I managed to secure accommodation for a number of homeless individuals. Many of these individuals I organised accommodation or a share rental for then took up secondary , TAFE or university education. Stability is a driver. Most of the homeless whom I assisted into education graduated. In recent years, Jennifer Kaeshagen who has launched the First Nations Homelessness Project has housed a number of families and individuals by thinking outside of the box, networking, working social media.
Most recently Jennifer housed a family of five children, the youngest 6 months old. This family has endured years of homelessness. The six month old was born on the streets, had known no other home but the streets. She coordinated donations of furniture and essentials for their long awaited home. Years had gone by and the Department of Housing was not able to house them. If we are going to address the unmet need while governments penny-pinch and refuse to build social housing then we have to network solutions. Jennifer’s tyro efforts have ensured that children will go to school. She has improved the lot of others, enabling opportunities for positive futures.
Some may argue that I am being hard on government. Should I not be? So much money gets misspent. I see so little will in politicians to advocate on behalf of the homeless. I don’t hide that I am sympathetic to the homeless, to the vulnerable, to those with greatest needs. If some of us do not speak up then all hope is lost. Without honest and brave voices at the fore, those behind us who wished they were brave but are not fearless in speaking up will have no hope of leveraging change.
There are 20,000 children aged 12 years and less in Australia who are homeless.
There are large homeless families in the most difficult of circumstances hanging in there for dear life terrified on the streets.
We as a nation should be better than this.
If Jennifer and I can find homes for the homeless then so too should society as a whole, with governments leading the way. It is pathetic when they impugn they do their best but in my experience for the most part parliament is a resting place for party room fixers and lobbyists for self-interest groups. Nor is it honourable for government agencies and government funded organisations in the sector to suggest that thinking outside the box, that changing policy practices is not their norm. Change your policies and prioritise what needs to be done.
Babies are born on the streets. Lives are lost on the streets. It is not a solution to tear families apart, just assist them, as Jennifer does.
According to the HIA, the Australian residential construction industry contributes $70 billion each year to the Australian economy and drives the economic livelihood of millions. The construction boom hinges and feeds off high population growth, driven mainly by immigration. Prices are artificially inflated, by investment schemes, foreign buy-ups, and high population growth- fuelling demand. It’s a growth pyramid, one that’s unsustainable. As such is discards people who can’t keep up with the hunger for money, and contributions to the scheme. We need a more equitable, more sustainable, economic model. Endless economic growth, and population growth, are both myths, and continues to polarize our wealth into the hands of the capital owners, corporations, and the wealthy. The homeless are now considered inevitable, a social cost, as housing prices keep escalating at higher rates than wages.