ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE REPORT:
Monday 25 June 2012
By Denis Fitzgerald, Catholic Social Services Victoria
ON THE evening of Thursday 21 June 160 business and community leaders slept out at Etihad Stadium in an awareness-raising and fundraising event organised by the St Vincent de Paul Society.
The sleepout involves a very basic evening meal – a cup of soup, a bread roll and a piece of fruit, prepared and served by volunteers from one of the St Vincent de Paul soup vans - and very basis sleeping conditions: three sheets of cardboard to be deployed to soften the impact of a concrete floor, and to keep out the high level of ambient light. Participants sleep out in the terraces around the arena. There is a roof, but the wide spaces are open to the night air.
June 21 was a bleak, wet Melbourne winter day, with temperature around 10C for most of the day and evening, falling to 8C at 6 am Friday morning. Given adequate resources and notice, you can prepare for the cold, with adequate clothing and sleeping gear. But it's harder to prepare for the hard ground, and for the light and sound that form part of the background. Everyone is up before 6am, and most seem to be stiff, and to have slept poorly.
Raising awareness of homelessness
A key aspect of the event was awareness raising. This was achieved in various ways, and not least though the media coverage that was generated, and the dialogues that were triggered by the participants as they sought sponsorship support.
My own experience was that quite a number of people engaged with me on various aspects of homelessness. There were 4,567 donors who supported Victorian participants, and each of them was engaged to some extent.
On the night itself, leaders from St Vincent de Paul and VincentCare addressed the group, with wide-ranging presentation on homelessness: what are the pathways into homelessness; what impact does it have on people? What are the pathways out? This was followed by talks by three people who have been homeless, and who now participate in the peer education support program conducted by the Council to Homeless Persons. It was a powerful combination: informative about people who are homeless, and about the services provided by St Vincent de Paul and VincentCare.
The human dimension of the basic facts is staggering
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in March this year that in 2010, 1.1 million adults in Australia had experienced homelessness at some time in the previous 10 years. There were a similar number of men and women in this group.
The 2006 census data on people who were homeless (see Counting the Homeless) reveals that 20,500 people were homeless in Victoria on census night 2006. Eleven percent, or 2,255 people, were in improvised housing or sleeping out - the others lived in boarding houses (22%), with friends or relatives on a temporary basis (36%), or in emergency or transitional accommodation (31%). Australia-wide, 12% of those who were homeless that night were under 12, and a further 21% were aged 12-18. The rate of homelessness in Victoria, at 432 per 10,000 of population, was, with NSW, equal lowest of the Australian states.
The human experience, and the dynamics of becoming homeless and getting out of homelessness are much more difficult to convey. The Road Home, the Australian Government’s 2008 White Paper on homelessness, is an accessible entry point to the literature.
Pathways into homelessness include domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse, mental health problems, disengagement by young people, and financial vulnerability. Preventing homelessness requires that these complex causal factors be addressed.
Pathways out can be just as complicated. Access to affordable, secure housing is clearly necessary, and there is a significant shortage of such housing in Victoria. But that is not sufficient.
Support programs that help people to address the causes of their homelessness are also needed. This is a long term endeavour, but we know that it can work. VincentCare CEO John Blewonski spoke movingly of the success of the support programs associated with the Quin House residential rehabilitation program – 51% of participants had moved to long term, and 31% to transitional housing.
Fundraising
At 24 June, the event had raised over $600,000 in Victoria, while across Australia the Sleepout has raised more than $5 million to assist homeless services.
Experiencing homelessness?
Everyone involved understand that homelessness is not something that you can experience for one night.
You can approximate some of the physical aspects of homelessness, but the fact that you have a home to go to makes this a fundamentally different experience from homelessness.
Nor does a night such as this expose you to the risks of violence, or the risks to physical and mental health associated with homelessness.
Many headed home for a shower and a nap – I was lucky to be able to sleep from 7 – 9am to prepare for the day ahead.
But the element of experience was there to some extent. The discussion with staff and volunteers from St Vincent de Paul and from VincentCare, and with the other participants, combined with the speakers, the physical setting and the relative discomfort, certainly focused the senses and the mind.
The overall experience was one of engagement with homelessness – awareness of our personal distance from the reality, but awareness too of the many ways that people in our community can slide into homelessness, of the importance of services for people at all stages of engagement with homelessness, and of the inadequacies of our collective response.
Next steps
The formula for engagement followed by the Sleepout, and by many of our members at Catholic Social Services Victoria, is to invite us to learn more about the facts and the people involved, and then to contribute our own resources through advocating for action or change, through volunteer and other engagement, and through financial contributions.
More information:http://www.ceosleepout.org.au
Denis Fitzgerald is Executive Director, Catholic Social Services Victoria
Photos by Casamento Photography.
Homelessness: a continuing challenge for Australians
Monday 25 June 2012By Denis Fitzgerald, Catholic Social Services Victoria
ON THE evening of Thursday 21 June 160 business and community leaders slept out at Etihad Stadium in an awareness-raising and fundraising event organised by the St Vincent de Paul Society.
The sleepout involves a very basic evening meal – a cup of soup, a bread roll and a piece of fruit, prepared and served by volunteers from one of the St Vincent de Paul soup vans - and very basis sleeping conditions: three sheets of cardboard to be deployed to soften the impact of a concrete floor, and to keep out the high level of ambient light. Participants sleep out in the terraces around the arena. There is a roof, but the wide spaces are open to the night air.
June 21 was a bleak, wet Melbourne winter day, with temperature around 10C for most of the day and evening, falling to 8C at 6 am Friday morning. Given adequate resources and notice, you can prepare for the cold, with adequate clothing and sleeping gear. But it's harder to prepare for the hard ground, and for the light and sound that form part of the background. Everyone is up before 6am, and most seem to be stiff, and to have slept poorly.
Raising awareness of homelessness
A key aspect of the event was awareness raising. This was achieved in various ways, and not least though the media coverage that was generated, and the dialogues that were triggered by the participants as they sought sponsorship support.
My own experience was that quite a number of people engaged with me on various aspects of homelessness. There were 4,567 donors who supported Victorian participants, and each of them was engaged to some extent. On the night itself, leaders from St Vincent de Paul and VincentCare addressed the group, with wide-ranging presentation on homelessness: what are the pathways into homelessness; what impact does it have on people? What are the pathways out? This was followed by talks by three people who have been homeless, and who now participate in the peer education support program conducted by the Council to Homeless Persons. It was a powerful combination: informative about people who are homeless, and about the services provided by St Vincent de Paul and VincentCare.
The human dimension of the basic facts is staggering
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in March this year that in 2010, 1.1 million adults in Australia had experienced homelessness at some time in the previous 10 years. There were a similar number of men and women in this group.
The 2006 census data on people who were homeless (see Counting the Homeless) reveals that 20,500 people were homeless in Victoria on census night 2006. Eleven percent, or 2,255 people, were in improvised housing or sleeping out - the others lived in boarding houses (22%), with friends or relatives on a temporary basis (36%), or in emergency or transitional accommodation (31%). Australia-wide, 12% of those who were homeless that night were under 12, and a further 21% were aged 12-18. The rate of homelessness in Victoria, at 432 per 10,000 of population, was, with NSW, equal lowest of the Australian states.
The human experience, and the dynamics of becoming homeless and getting out of homelessness are much more difficult to convey. The Road Home, the Australian Government’s 2008 White Paper on homelessness, is an accessible entry point to the literature.
Pathways into homelessness include domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse, mental health problems, disengagement by young people, and financial vulnerability. Preventing homelessness requires that these complex causal factors be addressed.
Pathways out can be just as complicated. Access to affordable, secure housing is clearly necessary, and there is a significant shortage of such housing in Victoria. But that is not sufficient.
Support programs that help people to address the causes of their homelessness are also needed. This is a long term endeavour, but we know that it can work. VincentCare CEO John Blewonski spoke movingly of the success of the support programs associated with the Quin House residential rehabilitation program – 51% of participants had moved to long term, and 31% to transitional housing.
Fundraising
At 24 June, the event had raised over $600,000 in Victoria, while across Australia the Sleepout has raised more than $5 million to assist homeless services.
Experiencing homelessness?
Everyone involved understand that homelessness is not something that you can experience for one night.
You can approximate some of the physical aspects of homelessness, but the fact that you have a home to go to makes this a fundamentally different experience from homelessness.
Nor does a night such as this expose you to the risks of violence, or the risks to physical and mental health associated with homelessness.
Many headed home for a shower and a nap – I was lucky to be able to sleep from 7 – 9am to prepare for the day ahead.
But the element of experience was there to some extent. The discussion with staff and volunteers from St Vincent de Paul and from VincentCare, and with the other participants, combined with the speakers, the physical setting and the relative discomfort, certainly focused the senses and the mind.
The overall experience was one of engagement with homelessness – awareness of our personal distance from the reality, but awareness too of the many ways that people in our community can slide into homelessness, of the importance of services for people at all stages of engagement with homelessness, and of the inadequacies of our collective response.
Next steps
The formula for engagement followed by the Sleepout, and by many of our members at Catholic Social Services Victoria, is to invite us to learn more about the facts and the people involved, and then to contribute our own resources through advocating for action or change, through volunteer and other engagement, and through financial contributions.
More information:http://www.ceosleepout.org.au
Denis Fitzgerald is Executive Director, Catholic Social Services Victoria
Photos by Casamento Photography.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE
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