What Do Melbourne's Homeless Really Need?

In response to my article on being the change you want to see in the world, a friend from Geelong Toastmasters commented: “I hadn't a clue of your homelessness experience last year and sorry couldn't be of help there.”

Other friends and family have made similar comments.

They’ve realised they didn’t know how challenging my situation had become.

Why didn’t I ask for help? Why didn’t I tell them what was going on?

Answering that question is going to be the focus of this series of nine articles, each one looking at a different reason I kept my homelessness to myself. In sharing what I think, you’ll gain an insight into how the worldview of the homeless differs from yours.

At the core, I kept my homelessness to myself — and think other homeless people do — because most people misunderstand what the homeless need.

The homeless don’t need a handout or a hand up. The homeless need someone to accept and respect the choices they're making.

Instead, most people want to make choices for you.

For example, another friend messaged me and said: “Last Christmas must have been the worst one you ever had.”

Why? Just because I was homeless doesn’t mean I had a bad Christmas. In my view, last Christmas was the best I had, filled with real friends supporting me in my journey.

That journey started with the two reasons I became homeless.

First, I was evicted from the family home by a family member after I made a statement to the police about his sexual offences against me when I was a child.

Second, exo and I had just broken up after three and a half years together. I thought life would never get as good as it had been. If we’d been together, I would have done a lot more to make sure he never experienced even a night of homelessness.

An article from the ABC looks at a number of reasons other people experience homelessness:

• Housing affordability.
• A shortage of accommodation.
• Centrelink’s unreasonable demands. Centrelink has a guiding philosophy: let’s punish the people who most need our help. No address? No support. We make a mistake. You pay. You make a mistake. You pay. (I’d be interested in research exploring the contribution Centrelink makes to mental illness and suicide.)
• Share housing not an option. Especially when you’re coming out of homelessness, you’re slow to trust and ready to run at any moment. Plus, coming back to mainstream living takes time.

The core lesson here: every homeless person is different. Every homeless person is on their own journey. Why do you think you know the best path they should take?

Comment your top 2-3 beliefs about the homeless below.

Support the homeless by taking part in my friend Glenford Noble’s event “Sleep at the G”.