For several months NNC has been handing out “swag packs” to
help the increasing numbers of people who are homeless. The decision to begin
handing out the packs was made as NNC staff realised that more and more people
without secure housing were approaching the Centre for assistance.
Aside from a recent $5000 grant from the City of Sydney, NNC does not
receive any funding to deal with the issue of homelessness. The money has been
coming from the proceeds of the Centre’s own Newtown Neighbourhood Festival and
from community donations.
“It’s become an epidemic for us. It’s great that we got that
money from the City of Sydney, but still a lot more needs to be done for us to
reduce the problem, or you can say that Newtown will change dramatically,” says
Burns.
The swags, which cost the NNC $45 each, represent the final
effort made by the Centre to assist the homeless after steps towards emergency,
medium or long-term housing have been exhausted. NNC has also had to greatly
increase other services and time spent on dealing with the homelessness crisis.
“The very last thing we offer them is a street swag, but
this is not a solution, it’s not the answer. The whole reality is that this is
not what we want to do. We want other solutions, but there are no other
solutions,” says Burns.
Rebecca Dudding, the NNC’s Community Development Officer,
spends much of her time trying to find homeless clients emergency housing,
which is typically available for three nights only. One problem she encounters
is that there is not enough crisis accommodation to meet the current demand.
“There are certainly days where they’re absolutely full.
Other days, you’re lucky, but often on those days it’s hours and hours of phone
calls and waiting. They’d be pretty much at maximum capacity all the time,” she
says.
This lack of housing is repeated across all levels, from
emergency shelters, to medium-term boarding houses to long-term, secure,
low-income rental or public housing. The shortage of affordable housing stock
in Sydney,
coupled with the rising costs of living means more people end up on the streets
and get caught in cycles of homelessness.
Burns and Dudding also said that the people they are
assisting are increasingly not the stereotype we may envision when we think of
someone who is homeless. More and more families, students and workers are
becoming homeless. Burns said that the problem is not being solved by
governments and hopes that communities will begin to show outrage and force
some change.
“It can’t keep going the way it is. It’s affected too many
people on low to middle incomes, so hopefully that will get more and more
people angry. I think it will soon affect people we all know,” she says. “The
crunch time for us is now. We really need to do something. One of the things we
really need is a full-time housing worker.”
Graham, a man who has been homeless around Redfern
on-and-off for 15 years, agrees that there is a serious shortage of affordable
housing. He hopes that governments will address the issue after consultation
with homeless people.
“They should come down to grass-roots level and speak to
people here, you know, on the street. Instead of sitting up in offices and
making all the decisions for us. It’s not right,” he says.
Graham believes that high rents and the current welfare
system encourage some people to remain homeless. After rent and utility bills,
he claims he would be poorer if he rented a studio apartment or boarding house
than if he remained on the street.
Doing so would also displace him from the daily support
network he finds in his friends, who are also homeless. He cites his friends as
the most important and only positive thing in his life. Without their support,
he says, his depression would engulf him.
Graham lists some problems he sees for Sydney’s homeless people – a lack of
emergency shelters, especially for men; lack of training to get skilled
employment; Centrelink payments that are too low; inadequate mental health
facilities; police harassment and legal problems; too few jobs; and the stigma
associated with being homeless which makes jobs difficult to obtain.
Photo: Ali Blogg – Caption: SSH journalist tries out a swag
pack
Source:
South Sydney Herald October 2008 www.southsydneyherald.com.au