From the BBC:
“The new face of homelessness
in Australia”
(Mary, 71, became homeless when
her landlord evicted her and she couldn't find another affordable place to rent)
This isn’t the retirement that
Mary had dreamed of. The former midwife spent years living on a cattle station
with her husband on the north-western edge of Australia - outside her window,
the vast and ruggedly beautiful Kimberley region. Now, though, the frail
71-year-old spends most of her days in her battered car. Her current view is
the public toilet block of a Perth shopping centre. Mary is not her real name.
She does not want people she knows to find out she is living like this.
She is one of the roughly 122,000
people who are homeless in Australia on any given night, according to data from
the country’s bureau of statistics. A recent government report says that 40% of
renters on low income are now at risk of joining that cohort. That’s what
happened to Mary. Pushed out of her flat last year when her landlord opted to
lease it for short-term stays, she couldn’t find anywhere affordable on her
state pension. Her husband can’t help - he’s in a care home with Alzheimer's
disease. “He'd be horrified [if he knew], absolutely mortified,” she says. So
now Mary’s 4x4 is full to the brim with her belongings. A walking frame lies in
the back, along with piles of clothes. On the passenger seat sits a tin of rice
pudding. “That’s my evening meal, every night without fail,” she says, picking
it up, her hands shaking.
She sometimes gets a bed in a
shelter, but most nights, Mary settles down in a part of the city where more
police are around. She explains she has been assaulted four times and does not
want to take any risks. Every so often, Mary coughs - the after-effects of a
recent bout of pneumonia she suffered after getting caught in a rainstorm. The
car battery died when the windows were down, and she had no money to fix it. “It
seems that the moment people know you're homeless… you become what I call a
non-person,” she says. “You no longer have any value in people's lives.”
(Mary has spent nine months
living in her car)
Homelessness services around
Australia have reported a jump in demand amid a national housing crisis – with
women and children the clear majority of those needing help. Indigenous
Australians are over-represented too. In recent years, record house prices,
underinvestment in social housing, a general shortage of homes and drastically
climbing rents, have left much of the nation’s growing population struggling to
find a place to live. Rents have risen the fastest in Perth - up an average of
20% this past year alone. In the few days we were in the city, everyone had a
story to share.
Hailey Hawkins tells me she and
her daughter Tacisha have been couch-surfing and living in tents for nearly
four years, most of Tacisha’s life. They are eligible for social housing – but
waiting lists are years-long. “One week, I'll have enough money to have decent
enough accommodation plus be able to feed both myself and my daughter,” she
says, struggling to hold back tears. “Otherwise, it's asking money to friends,
family or pretty much anyone really that is willing to help.” Michael Piu, head
of St Patrick’s Community Support Centre, says they’re seeing people from all
walks of life – young and old, working families and individuals alike – come
through the doors. “A single trigger can push people into homelessness, and
there really are very few options for them," he says. “They don't know
where to start.”
Is housing a ‘human right’? The
housing crisis remains a national talking point, and it is no different inside
the country’s parliaments. Wilson Tucker, a member of the Western Australia
state parliament, recently made headlines for being a "homeless"
politician – although he prefers the word nomadic. He was evicted and, despite
a salary almost twice the national average, could not find anywhere else to
live. But what Mr Tucker didn’t initially mention was that he is also a
landlord. He says he bought the home with tenants already living there, and
didn’t want to turf them out in what he calls a "red hot" property
market. So now, when parliament sits, Mr Tucker stays in hotels. The rest of
the time he is on the road in his 4x4 and roof tent. “But there's a lot of
people out there that don't have that privilege, and they're resigned to fight
over this handful of properties,” he tells the BBC.
(Wilson Tucker, a member of the
Western Australian state parliament, made the news as a 'homeless politician')
Housing has also been on the
agenda in the federal parliament, where MPs have been considering making it a
legally protected human right. Two independent parliamentarians introduced a
bill on the issue off the back of advocacy by the Australian Human Rights
Commission, but without government support it is unlikely to pass.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
announced in this year’s budget A$6.2bn ($4.1bn; £3.3bn) to speed up the
construction of new houses, provide rent subsidies, and increase the pool of
social and affordable housing. States and territories also have a slew of
initiatives they hope will ease the strain. But homelessness charities are
crying out for extra support to keep up with the growing demand, and advocates
say more urgent reform – like scrapping lucrative tax concessions for investors
or increasing protections for renters – is needed. There has been criticism
heaped on landlords too for hiking rents at a time when people are squeezed –
and discussions about limiting increases and narrowing the reasons for which a
landlord can evict a tenant. But the property industry says landlords are
hurting too.
In May 2022, interest rates began
rising faster than at any time in Australia's history – with 13 increases over
18 months. “Most people only own one investment property and they've had their
mortgage repayments [on those properties] go up by 50% as well,” says Cath
Hart, chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia. She
says the conditions are tough enough already, and the pandemic showed that
measures like rent increase caps and eviction moratoriums only push landlords
out of the long-term rental market. “What we saw during Covid… was that 20,000
fewer properties were available to rent as investors just went ‘You know what?
It's too hard.’”
(Every night volunteers in Perth
distribute food and clothes to the homeless)
In the meantime, every night
different charities take turns offering help to those who want it. As evening
falls and commuters exit their shiny office buildings in the centre of Perth,
crowds of people with nowhere to go gather in a square by the railway tracks. With
the Australian winter now kicking in, it is the clothes donations that are
causing the biggest flurry. Supermarkets donate food, there is a laundry
service, a mobile doctor surgery and a hairdresser. Also out are street
chaplains, providing meals.
Michelle Rumbold has joined them
to help. Until a few months ago, she was the one receiving the handouts. A
registered nurse, she was left with nothing after she got evicted and crashed
her car. “I ended up losing my job purely because I didn't have accommodation
and I didn't have a car,” Michelle says. “I think it took a while for people to
actually realise I was homeless, because I didn't look homeless. Gradually,
over time, you become so used to the street that you lose yourself.” Michelle
managed to get transitional housing and she’s now back on her feet, working in
a GP’s surgery. But she still likes to come back here and help. “It's hard to
leave this place once you've been here,” she says. “It's a really odd thing to
say but people become your family here.” But for every Michelle, there are
plenty more like Mary, still struggling. For Mary, it’s the loneliness that
hits her the most. “You’ve got no TV, no neighbours to say hi to,” she says. “People
often just give you the side eye and think 'Oh God, not another one' and walk
away.”
^ This is NOT just a problem in
Australia.
It is a problem across the World.
While some Groups like the US
Supreme Court, the State of California and many other Public Local, State and
National Governments are banning being Homeless and going after them rather than
helping them the problem is not and will
not simply go away just because you ban them.
1 in every 500 Americans is
Homeless.
The Homeless are no longer just
Drug Addicts and Prostitutes.
Today’s Homeless are: Working
Individuals, Veterans, Teenagers, Working Families, the Disabled, the Elderly,
those with Pets, etc.
People who work hard during the
day have to sleep outside or in the Cars at night because they don’t make
enough to cover a Mortgage, a Rent or for a Hotel Room.
Millions upon Millions of People around
the World are 1 or 2 Paychecks away from being Homeless. ^
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn09g9j143no
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