Image by Niklas via Flickr

The National Homelessness Summit that was to have taken place this week, has been delayed due the ash cloud that has been disrupting flights into Sydney.

The summit will now been held later this year on August 22-23.

What would it mean to you?

* never knowing where you are going to sleep tonight, or if you will even have a bed at all, or a blanket, or a pillow.

* not being able to fix yourself a meal, or a snack, having no plates, no company at dinner, not being able to shop for food and put it in your pantry.

* do you have a favourite TV show? You could try watching it in Harvey Norman‘s window.

* No place to wash and dry your clothes, no place to shower, or even freshen up – except the public toilets, or a drop in center (which is probably full).

* no sending the kids out into the back yard to play on sunny days, and curling up on the sofa with them to watch a movie on rainy days.

* walking, walking, or driving around, because you car is your home, but no place to go

* being homeless at night, how would you feel seeing all those lighted windows and families safe inside?

* no putting the baby and the kids to bed at night and tucking them in.

* the constant fear that your kids will be taken away from you because you are homeless.

Homeless families could put much more to this list and they are welcome to add comments if they can.

But in the meantime, think about it, think about what it would mean to you and your family to be homeless, and ask yourself – should this be happening in Australia?

Sydney Morning Herald – The City’s hidden Homeless

We need to make the crisis more visible, and at the same time alleviate the fears of parents who are doing their best to hold their families together against these impossible odds. What is the answer?

Here is the link to the full Wesley Mission report More than a bed

Image via Wikipedia

Wayne Swan -no help for the homeless

Researching the fixed pages for resources to help homeless families in Australia is a depressing task. The fact is, most of the sites are just talk, especially the government sites. It is explained at length what homelessness is, how many are homeless, and what it’s like to be homeless – but when it comes to direct help and advice, which is what this site wants to promote, it’s a big fail.

Even the few initiatives that exist don’t offer much of concrete value. Habitat for the Homeless is a great idea, but your chances of getting help throuigh them in a crisis are next to none. Rent a Farmhouse is another possible solution, but overlooks the tiny fact that most homeless families couldn’t afford a major move to a country area anyway – and there are so few cheap farmhouses available.

The Nationaal Rental Affordability Scheme also looks like a dead loss. Not only has the Gillard Government slashed the funding, but there is very little real information that a desperate home seeker can use.

In the wake of the disastrous Queensland floods, where whole houses were washed away or became uninhabitable, the crisis is even deeper. Yet this is the time the Federal Government chooses to turn its back on the crisis – citing the Queensland floods as the cause!

The fact is that there is very little help out there if you are homeless, or facing the prospect of becoming homeless. In the end, the only real answer is to approach public housing, get on its waiting list to get on the waiting list (yes, you have to go on a waiting list to be interviewed to see if you are eleigible for the waiting list), and when you finally get over all the hurdles, ask where the shortest waiting lists are – usually remote country areas.

The increasingly despicable lack of help, real practical help, for the homeless is disheartening. But we cannot give up. This will be the biggest crisis facing Australian familes in the very close future. This will be our 2012.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25557619-3102,00.html

Struggle to Shelter Homeless Families

Sydney Families Forced Onto Streets

Some of the comments leave one gasping – the utter lack of care or understanding in some people beggars belief, do they really think it can’t happen to them? This is the real epidemic from which no one is safe, not the Swine Flu.

What has this to do with Helping Homeless Families? Quite a lot. Smaller, more sustainable communities planned around conservation principles such as solar power, water tanks and vegetable gardens is nothing new, and such communities are being built in Australia. But they are still out of the reach of many. We now need to look at the future of public and low cost housing, and plan to build communties for low income families based on these principles.

A positive step toward a more sustainable future would be installing water tanks and solar power in public housing, and in making it mandatory for all new public housing to have these features. Cash rebates work only for those who have the cash to start with. If the government truly believes this is the way forward, then it first duty is to ensure the houses it builds and maintains are sustainable.

This would help low income families in many ways, by lowering their living costs and encouraging them to be more conservative in their use of resources. It would ease the burden on the existing electricity and water supplies. Sydney has had two major black outs this year, and in the country area were we live, you can guarantee a blackout every time there’s a storm.

While public housing shortage exists, homeless families will still suffer, but the building of small, sustainable communities will help alleviate that, and the power and water crisises we so often face. The Australian government is giving away money as cash incentives, but what better incentive can there be than to put money into building low cost affordable and public housing for Australian families? It generates employment and gives hope to hundreds of thousands of families that their future, and the future of this country, will see housing relief for all.

“IT’S the ugly truth of the economic downturn almost too heartbreaking to think about.

Entire families living in cars parked in suburban shopping centres.

Kids doing their homework in the back seat, not knowing what to tell their friends when they want to come over to play on their trampoline after school.

Parents getting ready for job interviews in public toilets.

Never in a million years did they think they would be in this position. All it took was one breadwinner to lose their job…”

Read the full article here.