Entitled Equal service: homelessness myths and memories, this project is a joint initiative between the Council to Homeless Person’s Homelessness Advocacy Service, the Department of Justice and PILCH’s Homeless Person’s Legal Clinic.
The project is aimed at busting the myths and simplistic stereotyping that falsely characterise the homeless are and how easy or difficult it is to find yourself homeless at any stage of your life.
This initiative was established because we believe that if we can dispel some of the myths that surround homelessness then we can decrease the amount of discrimination homeless people experience due to the simplistic community perceptions and stereotyping of homelessness.
One of the recurring themes that became apparent whilst researching Equal service is the need to break down the pre-conceived views that business owners, operators and the general public have about homeless people and about why they are experiencing homelessness. Many participants in the project to date have expressed the belief that if the wider community could understand how easy it is to be at risk of homelessness, they may be more willing to see themselves as part of the solution to solving homelessness issues.
The initiative is supported by research that was undertaken recently by Hanover Welfare Services, which identified that 74% of those surveyed believe that those people experiencing homelessness only have themselves to blame, that they had poor characters and had made poor choices in life, which is why they had ended up in their current situation.
For most Australians the image of homelessness is either an elderly man with
a mental health or alcohol problem or a young person hitting the high time in
the city. (Society of St Vincent de Paul 2000, p.3)
To dispel these myths and others that lead to discriminatory behaviours, together we have created a DVD that contains six animations, each of which tells the story of an individual who has experienced homelessness. Like the people who shared their lives with us to help produce this DVD, their pathways in and out of homelessness are all unique and collectively help to show the bigger picture of who the homeless really are in our society. Their stories touch on issues many of us might prefer not to deal with – family and domestic violence, bullying, poverty, divorce, fragile self-images, sometimes drug and alcohol issues and more often than not, pure old-fashioned bad luck.
Conservative estimates tell us that on any one night in Victoria around 24, 000 people will find themselves homeless and we know that this figure has increased by 14% in the last 5 years.
Nearly half of these people will be under the age of 25
40% will be women and half of these women will have children with them
In addition, 10% will be Indigenous.
Some live rough on the street, some are sleeping on the couches of friends and relatives, many are in crisis accommodation services whilst others in live in premises where they have no security of tenure.
A more realistic count would suggest that we could double the numbers, after all these figures are generated through an analysis of the census and if there is one thing we definitely know about the homeless is that quite a lot of them don’t have doors that you will find them behind on census night. If we work with this theory, then on any one night the number of people who are homeless in Victoria could fill the Telstra Dome.
The Equal Service Homelessness: Myths and Memories DVD’s
were launched by the Attorney – General Rob Hulls on Wednesday 8 August 2007 at Dante’s (upstairs in the Gallery) Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.
They will be incorporated into CHP’s Homelessness Advocacy Services state-wide training. For further information please contact Annie Paliwal on 03 94198529.
