Homeless but not heartless

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I met Tarn Swift and Rhiannon Fox this week. I had been told a homeless family was willing to speak on their experiences getting off the streets and into housing, but did not give it much more thought than that.

What I found was a frank and down-to-earth couple who loved their kids and had turned their life around through sheer grit and determination. They had spent too long in the all-consuming hunger brought on by methamphetamines, oblivious or ambivalent to the fact that they had lost their kids and were living in a world where theft and violent crime were a daily occurrence.

“You can’t trust anybody, they talk behind your back, stealing from you,” Rhiannon said.

“Ice ruins your life — you spend all of your time and money on it.” The couple made a dash for the coast and fashioned a better life for themselves — in a stormwater drain — with a goal to get clean, find accommodation and rebuild their family.

And they did. Since cleaning themselves up they proved to Mission Australia and Access Community Housing that they were a solid bet, and were placed in community housing. Tarn’s children — Tarn, 9, and Tia, 6, both beautiful and well-behaved kids, were soon joined by a newborn brother — Lyrik.

They are a family as strong as any I have known because they faced their demons, walked the hard road and are determined to repay the organisations that helped them by staying on the straight and narrow.

The world isn’t going to deliver solutions on a platter — we all have to dig deep and make them happen.