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The Forum > Article Comments > We need to get serious about homelessness > Comments

We need to get serious about homelessness : Comments

By Rob Evers, published 6/8/2012

As we mark Homeless Persons’ Week, it is critical that the federal and state government work together.

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An average worker earns between $600 and $700 a week so at least half their income goes on rent then a big chunk of their remaining income goes on utility costs and the remainder goes on food.

In the current times Australia has a shortage of affordable housing and each week more and more people are losing their jobs making it difficult, if not impossible to keep a roof over their heads, resulting in evictions regardless if you are a renter or have a home mortgage. If you have been evicted your details are registered on a data base making it difficult, if not impossible to rent a home.

Some may consider my next comment to be racial but I assure you I am not. It astounds me that we are still providing residence for the refugees which are arriving in great numbers, many of who have not followed the proper protocol to come to Australia, while we have high unemployment and a lack of affordable housing.

Refugees appear to be getting better service to housing and welfare than Australian people and our taxes are paying for it.

I know of many struggling families waiting on the long Q for public housing (Ministry housing) and have been some in excess of 10 or more years. The refugees appear to be given priority for public housing.

I feel it is time that our Australian governments considered the people of Australia first and foremost and stopped or at least reduced the money raised by our taxes on foreign aid and the refugees should be halted untill such time as jobs and affordable housing is available for our own people of Australia, if they don't the problem will only get worse.
Posted by gypsy, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:14:48 AM
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I'm a little p1$$3d off at the moment. I have just had a run in with the next generation of homeless kids. Should the various Government bodies take the blame for their future homelessness. I DON'T THINK SO.

Our Men’s Shed mentors a number of wayward kids. One's that have been kicked out of school for various reasons. We try to show them how to be responsible, how to do things, how things work in the real world. The State Government has set up a venue for them in one of the schools that were shut down. They are bussed to their various outings.

Do they care? Are they appreciative of the help that is being given? Are they interested in anything they are being, shown, helped with or taken too? NO. They don't care in the least. They are more interested in their mobile phones & iPods than anything else. Taking the mobile phones off them while they are using machinery only invokes a violent & abusive response with threats from, not one, but all of them. Apparently it's against the law to remove their mobile phones from them.

We are at our wits end & are considering withdrawing from the mentoring programme. Most of them will leave school at the finish of this year with no prospects & no interest. When asked what they are going to do, they all say they are going to get an apprenticeship. Not a chance in hell. They'll just live at home with their feral parents smoking dope & getting drunk until they can't stand the fighting. Then they'll leave to live in the park, homeless.

That's where all the Do-gooders get involved & accuse everybody & the various Governments of not helping & being nice to them. BS!
Posted by Jayb, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:19:21 AM
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Jayb, I agree there are some out there who may be no hopers and it would appear you have met some. You have to be commended that you at least tried to help them. Please don't give up on them. It would appear they have a problem, whether it be in the home or for other reasons.

As a young child I had many problems which resulted in my being made a ward of the state where I was placed in an institution, this resulted in far worse problems where my life became a life of institutions and criminal activities.

The pattern of my life from the age of approximately 6 through to the late 1980's was boys homes, youth training centres, and prisons. The only things I learnt in those places was how to commit crimes and all my friends were other criminals who I met in those places.

In the my last term of imprisonment in 1984 I attempted to rehabilitate with the help of others which I relied on but not on mysef.

In the late 1980's I realised that the only way for me to rehabilitate was by me myself and not expect others to perfume a miracle and do it for me. I am now going on 63 and have led a crime free life since the late 1980's.

If the strategy you have been using is not working, try another strategy. Try and get the the ones you are working with to think as an individual and not as part of a group. If you only help one that is better than giving up.
Posted by gypsy, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 11:58:20 AM
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I was touched by your post gypsy. Good on you for overcoming all those earlier handicaps associated with being a ward of the state. As a foster mother, I occasionally had kids who I couldn't deal with - jayb knows them all too well - so the only answer is to get in early. Adoption is better than abusive parents and/or institutions if it happens before the age of about 8. Adoption after the age of 8 tends to be problematic. But a good institution can be a lot better than a series of foster homes in that it provides stability and stops the downward spiral into hopelessness and homelessness.
Posted by popnperish, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 1:08:54 PM
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Popnperish: I was touched by your post gypsy.

So was I Gypsy, so was I.

Yes, I know what it's like to get in with the wrong crowd. My lot weren’t kids stuff when I was a kid. It was big, very big stuff. Think about the Fitzgerald enquiry, Whisky A Go Go, National Hotel Affair. Lucky for me, I was a very naive country boy come to the big smoke. I spilled my guts when I got picked up. That was at 7 pm, by 9 I was on a train back to Ayr with a stern warning never to come back to Brisbane... ever. I was lucky. Though I really wasn't a bad kid at 17. I was just having fun mixing with the big TV stars & J.D.Watkins Models, etc. I didn't know what drugs, prostitution or other stuff were. I was just the message boy with benefits.

But no kids in my time graffiti’d, smashed anything or bashed anyone for the fun of it, like they do nowadays. Mind you some people are imbedded in some of the landmark buildings around Brisbane or went swimming off the New Farm wharf, etc. But that wasn't kids. That was...Our most respected Politicians, Judges & policemen. And, I guess nothing changes much either, going by the recent revelations with some Union Chiefs in Melbourne & the reactions of certain Politicians, Police & Legal people.

Back to the business at hand. Not all of these kids come from bad homes, some are very caring & concerned parents who have tried to do the right thing. My wife & I have been through the same thing with one of ours. It wasn't until we dobbed him in to the police & he found a caring girlfriend that he woke up. Believe me it's a nightmare, going through that stage.

I don't know what they are going to do now. We have just got word that these special classes, etc, are not being funded any more, with the Newman cuts.
Posted by Jayb, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 3:27:13 PM
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