Homeless
HOMELESSNESS on the Border may not be immediately visible – but it exists.
A Life Packed In Four Grocery Bags
By JODIE O’SULLIVAN
Dallas Owen doesn’t want to talk about ghettos and gangsters in his music.
The Albury hip hop artist, 32, has his own stories to tell and the rhymes are written to the beat of his life experiences.
Owen was only two days in to the homelessness unit of a community services course at Albury’s Riverina Institute of TAFE when he knew he would write a song about it.
So inspired was he by what teacher Sherri Makepeace had to say on the subject, Owen went home and devoured the recommended reading material (“a bit of a first for me”).
The words poured out and the song, What We Call Home, was born.
He decided he would submit the song for his assessment to showcase his understanding of the issues surrounding homelessness.
Egged on by a friend, he shared the recording with his classmates and was overwhelmed by their resoundingly positive response.
Now he is more than happy to share the song with “anyone who wants to hear it”.
“I want people to open their eyes and not assume homeless means some 70-year-old guy in a gutter with a bottle in a brown paper bag,” Owen says.
“You can find yourself homeless for so many reasons from job loss to relationship breakdown and I just wanted to say, ‘Hey, don’t label people’.”
While Owen says he is fortunate not to have experienced homelessness himself, he has known dark days including struggles with depression and mental health.
It is his music that has helped him get through.
“Music has saved my life,” Owen says.
“I feel I have some purpose and somewhere to go but I also feel I can be a voice for someone else who can’t vocalise what they’re feeling.”
“I had a kid from Canada email me to tell my music helped him through a particularly rough time.”
“It’s awesome to be able to make an impact in a positive way.”
So how does a born and bred Albury lad wind up writing and recording rap music - or “spoken word hip hop” as Dallas calls it - in his every waking hour?
“Hip hop just got me at a very young age,” he says.
“I loved the music and very early on I was influenced by it and tried to copy the style.”
“I went through a stage when I wanted to write the ‘bad’ lyrics but I don’t do that rubbish now.”
It was a teenage crush on a girl that first prompted Owen to pen his own lyrics.
“Now I tell my own story and I don’t try to copy anyone,” he says.
When he’s not juggling TAFE and his job in merchandising, Owen is in “music mode”.
And it’s no idle pastime: he currently has six official videos on youtube, one album live on iTunes and 30 other online stores, and is 10 tracks into his next album.
He finds inspiration in the world around him, from his own mother and being dad to his four-year-old son through to broader social issues such as mental health and now homelessness.
“I feel like the day is wasted if I’m not writing or doing something with my music,” he admits.
“I get a concept and then come up with key words and sentences, and from there i write the verses, record it and mix it."
“I build it a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.”
Access to international artists for Owen’s work is only the click of a button away thanks to the world wide web.
He has built connections across the world through online music community SoundClick and has sourced artists for his recordings from the US, Canada and Germany to name a few.
Owen says there is no one genre that defines him and that’s why his music features singing as well as rapping.
“I like to have a singer and a rapper on a track - I like the lyrics from the rap verses and the melodic tone of a chorus,” he says.
“I think it makes what I do more accessible to people.”
No Shelter From The Storm
HOMELESSNESS on the Border may not be immediately visible – but it exists.
It’s in the streets and it’s on the couch next door and it’s a prominent issue despite many people being unaware of the extent of the problem. YES Youth and Family Services, located at The Hub in Albury, is an organisation that is only too aware of the local situation.
Client service manager Jonathan Park said YES had about 20 crisis beds across Albury-Wodonga yet the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics census data showed there were 800 homeless people across the Border. Mr Park, who was speaking about the issue for Homelessness Prevention Week, said YES provided crisis and temporary accommodation.
“We use refuges or help people with hotel rooms,” he said.
“We provide a full range of support for people and link them with a case managers to work on their goals and resolve their homelessness.”
But Mr Park said those who couldn't be placed in crisis accommodation had to rely on couch surfing or shelter elsewhere.
He described homelessness as “not having a safe, stable place to call home” and said it did not discriminate.
“It has broad-reaching effects, from those experiencing housing stress to others sleeping at the river,” he said.
"People are staying in refuges – that's different to the inner city where homelessness is really obvious."
"Here it's more invisible and people don't know it's actually happening."
Mr Park said YES did not just provide accommodation but also counselling and other services to those who were sinking.
He said they had a significant number of new clients presenting themselves to YES every week. He said about 40 per cent of those clients were under the age of 25.
“They have a broad range of housing issues from people struggling to pay rent and struggling to find private rentals to people who are rough sleeping,” he said.
“Full-blown homelessness is much higher than we expected.”
“We need a spectrum of housing and support options for people."
“There is no one-size-fits-all, we need crisis beds and we need cheaper housing because there is an affordable housing problem in Australia and it’s getting harder and harder.”
It’s also time for the community to step up.
“People need to take responsibility and if you see somebody you think might be experiencing housing stress – support them and link them in with a service.”
No Home And No Hope
ANALYSIS by JODIE O’SULLIVAN
A 41-year-old Albury man is released from Mannus prison with $250 in his pocket and a letter for government housing. Told to attend parole appointments, mental health programs and to organise accommodation, he bunks with family and begins the arduous process of re-entering society. After being rejected for 12 private rental properties, cash-strapped and with his temporary accommodation set to run out, the man begs to be sent back to jail.
A grandmother who cannot read or drive arrives in Albury with her grandsons, 10 and 12, and is forced to live in a caravan park for six weeks while Department of Community Services staff work out what to do. With no housing on the horizon and the children running amok - the 12-year-old found in a gutter stoned to the eyeballs - the boys are sent on a train to their “unsuitable” father interstate.
A woman “in and out of the system for 20 years” with crippling mental health problems holds staff at bay at a Lavington real estate agency for four hours. Police and ambulance attend the scene but the woman is released. Days later she attempts suicide, is rushed to hospital, placed in Nolan House for six weeks and is still “in the system”.
A man, 43, with cancer is living in a North Albury caravan park. Homeless due to a relationship breakdown and depression, he can't afford fresh food, clean clothes, or household items to furnish a rental.
He would like to return to work one day but it’s hard to think about a job or a future when you can barely survive day to day.
Two young boys have to be bussed to a shelter in Queanbeyan because there was nowhere for them to go after the death of their guardian.
These are the hidden faces of our homeless on the Border.
The most soul-destroying aspect to this is the case studies obtained by the Border Mail are just the tip of the iceberg.
Hidden in a mountain of paperwork across various systems and service providers are thousands of these stories right here on the Border.
Real people.
Real lives.
Real fear about where they and their children will sleep tonight … and the next night and the next.
With no home and no hope.
Sources for this story have had to remain anonymous due to the fact they have put their jobs on the line by daring to lift the lid on a system that is quite clearly flailing.
As one source said, “We’re just not winning”.
And it’s crippling everyone.
The current system is such that it chews people up - from clients to case workers - and spits them back out over and over again.
The majority of people who work in these organisations are compassionate and hard-working. They are fighting tooth and nail to get outcomes for their clients, often clocking up hundreds of kilometres a week or ringing up exorbitant phone bills in a desperate bid to secure a roof over their heads. Or they are shuffled through temporary accommodation - local motels, caravan parks and the Pemberton and Mate streets blocks of flats.
The hoops our homeless are expected to jump through to even qualify for housing makes the task “impossible”. With no car, no licence, limited literacy and numeracy skills and often fleeing abusive domestic relationships, these people are told they have to look and apply for 12 private rentals before they can even be put on a list.
“You’d need seven bus services a day for them to be able to meet all their commitments,” case workers say.
“What the system does to people is why they commit suicide.”
Eventually these people give up - or “disengage” as it is officially termed - and return to abusive domestic situations, couch surfing, sleeping rough, and even re-offending.
Not surprisingly staff turnover is high; The Border Mail understands eight staff have left the NSW Housing Albury office since Christmas.
They, too, are being swallowed up by a sense of hopelessness.
There aren’t enough crisis beds, not enough affordable housing and too little collaboration between service providers to find workable, long-term solutions.
There is no one-size-fits-all fix.
The people I’ve spoken to are crying out for innovation, co-operation and community compassion and leadership to tackle this multi-faceted crisis.
But first we have to be brave enough to own the problem, publicly.
While managers at government departments and higher up the food chain scurry to keep secret the true extent of the problem and gag staff, the crisis will only deepen.
That’s why this paper is prepared to speak for the people who are unable to speak or told they cannot speak.
As a community we cannot continue to ignore the damning weight of anecdotal and statistical evidence.
Homelessness Prevention Week officially ends tomorrow but it won’t end homelessness.
Let’s think about that as we lay our heads down to sleep tonight.
If We Don't Help, Who Will?
BY OLIVIA LAMBERT
FATHER Peter MacLeod-Miller always carries a sleeping bag in his car boot.
Whenever he passes the Albury train station or the river at night, he always seems to need it.
The Archdeacon of St Matthew’s Church is an advocate for the Border’s homeless and said he never turned anybody away – no matter their background.
“I think it’s very often the people who fall outside the paperwork, outside the hours of the services and outside the facilities,” he said.
Father MacLeod-Miller said homeless people did not have a voice and yet they faced a range of issues that needed to be spoken of.
“People with an intellectual disability, psychiatric problems and people who have used up all their chances find it difficult to access services,” he said.
“It’s young people, it’s older people and they only put their hands up for help when they are desperate.”
Father MacLeod-Miller said a homeless man approached him and said his friend was under a tree at the river, attempting to take shelter from pouring rain.
“They asked me to go down and help because this person did not want to ask themselves,” he said.
The outspoken community leader said homeless people lived in danger.
He said they were exhausted from sleeping with one eye open – terrified they might be attacked by a passer-by.
“One person who was homeless once came to the church and told me one of his friends was in emergency because he had been beaten up,” he said.
“It’s very dangerous sleeping out – the moment you fall asleep you could be robbed or killed.”
“It does happen and homeless people are vulnerable and live in great danger.”
Father MacLeod-Miller said the homeless were “refugees” in the community.
“If people are concerned about refugees, we should be looking at the refugees in our own society,” he said.
The archdeacon has people knocking on his door every night.
Without fail he lets them in the church and feeds them or finds them a hotel room.
He works with Father Kevin Flanagan of North Albury's Sacred Heart Church and Reverend Christine Moimoi at St David's Uniting Church.
“People go to anything with a cross on it and they just hope to get some sort of help,” he said.
Among the daily desperation and despair, Father MacLeod-Miller somehow still has hope for the future of people on the streets.
But he said the community had to care enough to act.
“If we can’t deal with them nobody can and if we don't do it, who will?”
Roof over your head first step
By JODIE O'SULLIVAN
Early intervention and creative, compassionate communities are the keys to stemming the tide of homelessness, according to a leading project manager on housing.
Sherri Makepeace says once a homeless person hits a service system it takes a lot more time and expense to house them.
“We need to step in before people present as homeless at a service provider’s doors,” Ms Makepeace said.
“Once they hit crisis point other factors, such as family violence, drug and alcohol issues, and relationship breakdown, start overtaking.”
“However early intervention is not about just paying someone’s rent; it’s about sustainable support so these people are not back again in a few weeks.”
Ms Makepeace worked on the national homelessness action plan for the Murrumbidgee (taking in Albury to Young, Deniliquin to Griffith) from 2010 to 2014 and has helped manage a range of housing projects over the past 10 years.
From her experiences, she believes a co-ordinated approach is needed at every level - from grassroots community campaigns and local council through to state and national governments - to truly tackle the complexities of homelessness.
But at the core of any plan there needs to be a “housing first” approach, according to Ms Makepeace who is currently delivering a unit on homelessness to community services students at the Riverina Institute of TAFE Albury campus.
“There is usually a range of complex and individual factors that affect people who are at risk of homelessness or who are already in crisis,” she said.
“But these people can’t work on their mental health, their job-seeking skills or their education if they do not have somewhere to go home to.”
“As part of the pilot project I was involved with, a property was allocated to a person with funding for basic household set-up and further support to help them get their life back together.”
“This housing first approach with ‘wraparound’ support was very successful and has been embedded into the model for how homeless services should be delivered.”
At the end of the day, Ms Makepeace said the reality was there would never be enough affordable housing.
But she does believe what we do have could be better utilised.
Her vision, if you like, is that public housing would be used as a tool to provide people with the skills they need to eventually move out into private rental accommodation.