Try walking a mile in their shoes

Stephanie Kirkman Meikle

IS there a single person in authority, government or a public policy making role who has a true understanding of the life of a homeless person?

Policy is made by people and we’d like to believe that good policy is underpinned by sound decision-making, based on good information.

Is this how we are developing policies and strategies to eliminate societal problems?

Can anybody who is fortunate enough to be in a position of authority ever begin to understand the alternate reality in which the homeless live?

Chances are that those who have been born into a stable family environment, attained an education and now receive a regular pay packet sufficient to meet their needs and aspirations are most unlikely to come even close to understanding the hardship of the lives of Tasmanians in the lowest socio-economic bracket. And there really is a big divide down the middle of our society.

There are families who have been in food stress for generations. A Vinnies volunteer told me recently that he had been delivering food parcels to the same people for 30 years, starting with the parents and continuing to support their adult children in the same suburb, a generation later.

We know there are suburbs in which only the wealthiest can dream of living and suburbs where people don’t want to live at all.

That’s one level of societal disconnect, but there are deeper levels of poverty and disadvantage: levels in which people depend on others for a roof, access to water and toilet facilities — like couch-surfers, those who live in cars, or those who sleep in stairwells, in underpasses, in a tent in the bushes …

There are children born into domestic chaos who now live on the streets, as 40-year-old adults.

There are men whose life journey cycles between homelessness, prison, specialist mental health crisis care and drug rehabilitation.

It’s been explained to me by a very gentle and respectful homeless man that “You feel unworthy, unwanted, that no one could love you”. How does a person end up feeling this way?

For many of the men who cycle through Bethlehem House’s homelessness support services, there is a common thread.

As a child they have lived in a violent and dangerous household, with parents who have been unable to protect their childhood.

As an adolescent they have suffered sexual abuse, often at the hands of people who should have protected them, and as a result they have fled into homelessness.

Once on the streets, they are easily preyed upon or forced into crime.

Many homeless men haven’t ever had a good father or mother figure to role-model themselves on and then have trouble forming good relationships and being a good parent themselves.

All of these statements sound sweeping, but I hear the stories daily from the adult men who are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives but don’t know how to. At Bethlehem House, we have a program of literacy support, run by Chatter Matters volunteers, which acknowledges that the homeless have often missed a step in their early years, which has left them, as adults, with poor literacy.

The result is that bills go unpaid, court letters get ignored, legal proceedings begin, debts mount and this all adds to overwhelming difficulties trying to get back into housing.

The levels of anxiety, depression and mental ill health experienced by homeless men are shockingly high, but we can begin to understand the origins of it all.

In this country, at the top of the development index, are we addressing generational determinants of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and lost opportunity in Tasmania, or have we as a society accepted this social divide? It is the elephant in the room, standing there, its presence clearly visible, but largely ignored.

How do we tackle a problem of elephantine proportions? Like anything else, a bit at a time.

A good start would be to tackle income inequality. The campaign to raise the rate of Newstart allowance is clearly stating the shocking plight of those on the lowest incomes.

Poverty is poverty and making people live on a pittance will not reduce the stresses on parents that cause domestic violence. Attempts to enforce drug testing and to exclude the addicted from receiving Centrepay allowances will not help them to get into work or to eat decent food, or to pay off debts they have accrued through previous problems.

It is too easy to see the poor as the undeserving poor and to demonise them for their failure to live up to our expectations. It is too simple to deny the complex origins of social inequity by labelling the poor as either “the homeless’’ or “the drug-affected” or “the victims of abuse” and to try to apply a plaster to each.

I’d like to think that despite my position of privilege, I’ve gained some insight into these issues and I would like to exhort our policy-makers, politicians and civil servants to walk for a week in the shoes of the other half of society, to live where they live, access the services they access, eat their food, experience their lives. Just one week and then it’s OK to go back to normal life, in a house where everyone in

I would like to exhort our politicians and civil servants to walk for a week in the shoes of the other half of society ... services will be happy to assist

the family has their own bedroom, everyone has a decent meal on the table, or in a restaurant and to feel comforted again by having access to money, transport and a workplace where people respect you. I’m sure that the services which support the poor will be happy to assist you to experience this. I suggest a week because it’s just long enough to realise what you can’t have or do when you are poor. Living for just one week in, say, a homeless shelter would be life-changing, but maybe it would be too challenging to commit to living a whole week in poverty? Stephanie Kirkman Meikle is chief executive of Bethlehem House, which acknowledges the support of the Tasmanian Government, the Tasmanian Community Fund and the members of the community that underpins its work. Bethlehem House is a Special Work of St Vincent de Paul Society.