Homelessness is not child's play

A local radio presenter today quit 2 days into a 5-day stint as a homeless person living on the streets of Geelong.

He spent the first night sleeping in a tunnel in Werribee, the second in his car as he was too afraid to sleep on the streets.

There was talk of him spending a night in the men's crisis facility provided by the homelessness agency I work for, but after some talks with radio station management he's pulling out over genuine fears for his safety.

My thoughts on this whole thing are mixed - on one hand I can admire him doing something I wouldn't have the courage to do, while on the other I do question the seriousness with which they have taken this "stunt".

It's no small thing to sleep rough on the street. Not at all. I see people every day who are doing exactly that. Coming from the country town that I did, my experiences of homelessness in Geelong compared to knocked me flat.

There is no accommodation in Geelong. Next to none. Options are limited, or unsuitable. Waiting lists for public housing are years long, private rentals are too expensive, government assistance barely covers the cost of living and resources available to agencies such as the one I work for are just as limited.

To hear the abuse and accusations that people like myself working at these agencies are not doing enough is frankly insulting. As housing support workers, we are bound by the resources available to us. Basically, if the housing isn't there, then we can't offer it.

One of the presenters on the radio this morning claimed that local services were fudging their figures to make it look less bad than what it was. We have no reason to make it look good - we are underfunded industry. In an ideal world, more homeless would equal more funding and support to decrease those figures. Obviously it doesn't work like that, my point being we have no cause to sugar coat figures.

In a typical day, I see people being evicted from homes for a number of reasons, families sleeping on lounge room floors (if they're lucky) or in cars, paying ridiculous amounts of money for caravan parks, people living literally, on the street. They come in, they use our shower, they listen to us tell them there is no accommodation, they get a food parcel, they walk the streets scouting for a good, relatively safe place to sleep for the night.

Don't tell me we downplay homelessness in Geelong, because we certainly don't. It's not something easily fixed, no fluff and bubble or suitcase of cash is going to solve this, we don't treat it like that - and no-one else should either.

I can see the good in trying to raise awareness of homelessness by sleeping rough for a week, but don't blame the problem on the services that are doing their best to help and certainly don't underestimate what you're getting yourself into when you make the decision to be homeless for a week to right the world. I know of one person who wasn't prepared and didn't like what they found.