Eleanor Roosevelt proudly displaying the new United Nations Declaration of Human Rights 1948.
Our new home in Ballarat sits directly adjacent to a beautifully manicured oval called White Flat. It’s a former gold mine and houses a stately old and renovated grandstand.
There are two homeless people, a woman and man in a tent under the grandstand and a long time homeless man living in the grandstand. The couple in the tent have scared off the man in the grandstand and he only returns in the evenings to sleep, then disappears early each morning.
The couple in the tent are trouble and this morning we heard another example of domestic violence coming from within the tent and called the police. The man has been imprisoned before and we watched him get taken away handcuffed in our first couple of weeks after arriving.
Four cops arrived then left with no outcome. I went to the police station for an explanation but as yet they haven’t rung me to explain as to just what can be done.
I then visited Ballarat’s biggest outreach service Uniting’s headquarters just nearby and walked into the meals area which was completely full of Ballarat’s homeless. I spent twenty minutes chatting to a couple of team leaders who do an extraordinary job.
We discussed an interview I had heard on Radio National last week conducted with Uniting Ballarat’s CEO. She mentioned that there were 78 registered rough sleepers in the city and many more who choose to keep to themselves.
Submissions had been made to the Victorian Government for more shelter but were rejected.
The team leaders were well aware of the situation at White Flat Oval but their hands are tied. The best outcome would be that the offender be imprisoned and his partner be moved back to her childhood home.
Worst outcome for us is that she’s dragged out of the tent deceased if something isn’t done. He chased her up the street shirtless a couple of days ago.
Of course homelessness is an epidemic and will continue that way whilst buying or renting in big cities continues to be as unaffordable as it is now.
I was naïve enough to think homelessness was confined to overseas countries but especially since Covid it’s reached unmanageable proportions in Australia.
Last week in Bunbury WA a bunch of homeless people set up camp in an outdoor amphitheatre stage, only to have the council play The Wiggles ‘Hot Potato’ on high rotation to clear them off! There’s empathy in action.
As much as The Declaration of Human Rights is ignored by every country under the United Nations, Australia doesn’t do too badly when it comes to compliance.
Our biggest area of opportunity is Article 25 which says as follows:
- Right of social service
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children shall enjoy the same social protection.
For the past few years I’ve worked as a Mental Health Support Worker part time. It’s a job I love and you never get two days the same.
In Melbourne I was predominately a recovery coach for one client trying to get her back on her feet both mentally and physically to achieve some semblance of normality after a number of brutal challenges she had faced.
In the past month in Ballarat I’ve been rotating through half a dozen clients with serious mental and physical disabilities. Most of what I do is to help maintain a status quo and provide access to the community and doctors appointments as well as providing domestic duties where needed.
What the last month has reinforced is what the benefits of having a roof over your head actually means. It provides security, safety and dignity. Without these little apartments my clients have, they’d be dead.
When I walked into the overflowing kitchen at Uniting this morning I saw forty more of the same type of clients I look after, but alas they have nowhere to go.
The violent man in the tent is an anomaly in my experience. The disadvantaged people that I’ve met over the years are polite and grateful for whatever they can get and this was evident yet again at Uniting.
At some stage in your working life some manager will throw up a power point slide something like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that pertains to your workplace or a function like sales.
I would like to see the government’s hierarchy of needs and identify it’s priorities. I’m tipping US relations, submarines and bowing to Rupert Murdoch is at the top and at the bottom level is a group consisting of teachers, nurses, aged care, front line workers etc.
In a Utopia, I’d love to see this hierarchy flipped so that topics like the acceleration of homelessness in this country can be attended to.
It’s an opportunity to invest in infrastructure, tradespeople, engineers, builders, architects, town planners, social workers, support workers, health specialists, administrators and much more. Giving people dignity and respect isn’t something that’s tangible but it’s a great start for any community.
One of my clients in government housing hasn’t seen anyone from the department in the fifteen years he’s been living there. I grew up in a housing commission home in WA and we received regular check ups to ensure repairs were done and just a general catch up. The whole system now is under financed and in a state of disrepair.
Something needs to be done now to stem the bleeding because homelessness is real and it doesn’t discriminate no matter where you live in Australia. I’ve written to my local MP Catherine King demanding action for Ballarat but I doubt whether it will get past a staffer. You can only live in hope 🙂
