By Eric Martin
With some of the coldest nights experienced in Perth this week in more than 15 years, the need to remember 9,000 West Australians who are homeless is ever more pressing.
Homelessness Week – Sunday 2 to Saturday 8 August – aims to educate the public, draw attention to the problem of poverty and highlight the plight of the 116,000 Australians who are sleeping rough, without access to that most basic of fundamental needs for survival – secure shelter.
A key focus this year is the impact of Homelessness on First Nations Peoples, which is of critical importance given the terrible over-representation of First Nations people among those impacted by homelessness – with some 30 per cent of the over 9,000 West Australians facing homelessness every night.
“The sector, led by Shelter WA and in collaboration with the WA Alliance to End Homelessness, seek to shine a spotlight nationally on homelessness and I would hope that through events like this we can help the community to come to a better understanding of the real causes of homelessness, and the actions required to end homelessness in our community,” said St Patrick’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Michael Piu.
“Sadly the economic fall out of the pandemic has been felt in some respects most greatly in WA so far with the highest unemployment numbers,” he shared.
Speaking to The Record, The Shopfront Director Damian Walsh said that between January and December 2019, the then Maylands (now Bentley) based agency received nearly 15,000 visits.
“From a humanitarian perspective, every human being deserves dignity. If you haven’t got food in your stomach, it’s pretty difficult to feel good about yourself,” Mr Walsh said, during an interview in 2019.
“So even if it’s as simple as that, it’s the least we can do to help these people who haven’t got much in the way of means.”
The Shopfront is an Archdiocesan agency supported by volunteers with aims to relieve poverty and suffering in an inclusive, welcoming environment offering fellowship and hospitality to those in need of it.
An average of 68 volunteers come in every week, preparing food and serving it to those in need of a meal.
Since its conception in 2002, individuals have come and gone, each offering their contributions to the operations of the agency to make sure Perth’s less fortunate are supplied with a meal.
“The thing is, when you’re treated well – treated as an individual – it makes a huge difference,” Mr Walsh said.
“Every single person that comes through the door is greeted, if not by name, then a simple ‘hello’.
“People that come here know the volunteers are looking after them and they’re here because they want to be, not because they have to be; and people respond well to that.”
Continuing his conversation, Mr Piu said that, many homeless people unfortunately had little if any buffer for a contingency and now face poverty perhaps for the first time in their lives.
“This, in turn, places additional pressure on the system and particularly for those who were already in a position of need prior to the pandemic.
“In the Fremantle region alone our data is indicating a more than doubling of rough sleeping since the pandemic began, which is very concerning,” he said.
“We are also concerned about those who perhaps have not had to access the welfare system in the past, and perhaps don’t know how to navigate and indeed might well be reluctant to do so – the sooner we can reach them, the more likely it is we can prevent their situation becoming entrenched.”
The ABS definition of homelessness is informed by an understanding of homelessness as “’home’ lessness rather than ‘roof’lessness: it emphasises the core elements of ‘home’ in Anglo-American and European interpretations of the meaning of home as identified in research, recognising that it represents much more than just four walls and a roof that keep us sheltered from the environment outside.”
“One thing we can be proud of in WA is the strength of partnership across the homelessness sector, and community sector more broadly, and so there is fantastic collaboration and support for Homelessness Week from that sector, and I have to say, from the broader community and business,” Mr Piu said.
“COVID has meant that we have had to approach Homelessness Week very differently, but that said, there has been a great program of events put together, and many others in the community have got behind the week with their own events, fundraising and support drives, and the like.”
For more information about The Shopfront, go to www.shopfront.perthcatholic.org.au