Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Unhoused Voices from the Thresholds, a podcast about housing and homelessness in the Bega Valley, New South Wales.
The makers of this podcast would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the lands, waterways and sky country across the Bega Valley shire.
Welcome to Unhoused, our podcast where we explore the changing face of homelessness in the Bega Valley, the levels of awareness in the community and the kinds of assistance available to those experiencing difficulties with housing. In later episodes we will also explore some of the housing strategies that are on the table and those being implemented for our community.
My name is Lisa and I'll be your guide throughout this podcast series.
Throughout the series you will hear reference to many acronyms and support services.
We will list all of these in the show notes each episode and encourage listeners who are struggling with issues around housing, mental health or safety to reach out. There are people there to help you.
Note that recordings are often made outside and in places where people feel safe, but they are not always conducive to excellent sound quality.
Some names have been changed, but the stories are all real, as in each episode we've been out in the community canvassing opinions and awareness.
Are you aware that there's a housing crisis in the Bega Valley?
[00:01:51] Speaker B: I sure am.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: What evidence of this have you seen? Or I suppose in social media?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: I've seen a lot of posts about it. You know, it's on ABC News a lot. I'm really interested in the economic development space of our shire and knowing the issue is also a broader, both national and international issue, which I think is not surprising given the economic system.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Young people, teenagers, where there's been some sort of family breakdown, are quite often couch surfing or living, even living rough.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: But don't have a safe place to go home every night. Safe, stable, safe.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Are you aware that there's homelessness in the Bega Valley?
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Yes, certainly aware that there's.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: There's a lot of it around the area, unfortunately.
Have you seen evidence of this or how have you learned? Personally, I haven't seen a great deal of evidence, mainly because I live more down the coast, but I'm certainly aware of it. And recipients of such things as the social justice newsletters and whatever as well.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: So. Yeah.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: And what do you think a homeless person looks like?
Like anyone.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Anyone would be very hardened.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Not necessarily that easy to pick actually.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: Because they could be any of us.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Are you aware that there's homelessness in the Bega Valley?
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yep, I'm aware of that.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Have you Seen evidence of it or how come you're aware of it?
[00:03:36] Speaker D: So one of my girlfriend's friends, she's homeless and she lives in her car, so.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Alright, how old is that person?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: She's 19.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: That's not good.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: No, definitely not.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Are you aware of any homelessness in the Bega Valley?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Yes, I am.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: What have you seen or how do you know this? We actually get some of them in the shop from time to time.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: We do see them on the streets occasionally.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: And what does a homeless person look like in your mind.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Generally? You can just tell by what they're wearing, like some of the very old.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Clothes and you know, they do smell a bit and that as well.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: You can generally pick it.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And what do you think should be done about homelessness in the Bega Valley?
Find them accommodation as quickly as possible.
Are you aware of the levels of crisis accommodation in the valley?
No, I'm not on any given night. In Australia, more than 122,000 people are experiencing homelessness.
Approximately 23% of this homeless population. Over 28,000 people are aged from 12 to 24 years.
Last year, 43,226 young Australians aged under 25 presented a loan for homelessness support. So this number would include those not yet designated homeless.
In New South Wales, where around 35,000 of the nation's homeless population are located, we can extrapolate that 23% or nearly a quarter of the state's homeless people are aged 12 to 24. And this is almost 8,750 people in the Bega Valley. 2021 census indicates that there are over 150 homeless people in the Shire.
23% of 151 is almost 38. 38 is the number of young people 16 to 25 currently registered are seeking assistance with CWACS South East Women and Children Services.
And of course there are likely more in unstable or unsafe housing.
During research for this project, we learned that young people are twice as likely as the general population to access homelessness services.
Certain factors like an out of home care history and domestic violence can further increase their risk.
We also learned that nearly half of all young people experiencing homelessness report poor mental health and psychological distress and around half also have issues with alcohol and or drugs.
Young people can experience homelessness in various ways, including rough sleeping, couch surfing and living in overcrowded dwellings. For this episode of Unhoused, I spoke with three young women who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness in the bega Valley and two caseworkers from SeaWacs Here in Bega, some of our conversations will be used in later episodes. But here you will meet Gillian, Shawna and caseworker Naomi. Each very impressive humans.
[00:07:44] Speaker D: My name is Gillian, I'm 17 years old. I'm currently not in a stable home situation.
I kind of am staying a bit all over the place at the moment, but mainly at my older sister's. But it's a bit hard there cuz she has three of her own kids and my younger sister also living there.
And it's kind of bit hard for me because of how many kids are there to be there all the time. It's kind of bit overcrowded and you're that age where yeah, it's annoying little kids. Oh my gosh.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Not having your own space too, I guess. But you're staying there for now and so you're. You're okay for now. Yeah. What was the first step you took? Did you go straight to your sisters or did you call for someone for some help?
[00:08:33] Speaker D: I got my sister to get me because I was. And then I just got my sister to pick me up and when I got my stuff and just left and I didn't really think of what I was gonna do, where I was gonna stay. I kind of just was like I have to get out because before I even left I wasn't going home because I didn't want to be at home. Home, stuff like that.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: So you were spending a lot of time in other people's houses?
[00:08:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: How long did you do that for do you think?
[00:09:00] Speaker D: The whole school holidays. Basically like the six week school holidays. I was just at everyone's houses and I think I went home a total of four times in the school holidays. Yeah, I tried to stay there for a long time but I just couldn't anymore. And like it got worse cuz my brother, he was suffering addictions over in Western Australia and him and his partner and family moved over with us and so we were a very full house and it just went all crazy. Too many people and I couldn't live there. It just got too out of hand. Mum would blow up because it was always like on edge and like really stressful to be around. And then yeah, I'd seen Seawags before because there was a moment in when I was living at Mum's where it got really rough. Also where my sister was still living at home, younger one. And I seen Seawax and I said to him like I don't want to leave just yet because things are not bad but I like want help and like you to tell me what you think I should do and what's best for me. And we kind of just left it there and then just everything like this went. And I was still at school. Like, I went back to school at the start of the year and the school was just like, no, we're going to refer you to Cerex again.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: And.
[00:10:19] Speaker D: And my Campbell Page worker also referred me again to cwax.
I started seeing Campbell Page when the first incident with Mum happened, and that would have been July last year. I think she just has a lot of mental health problems that she won't recognise and get help with. That's, like, why we think she would, like, blow up at us all the time and stuff. And so, yeah, I definitely, I definitely, definitely think that my mum's is from her parents, because my mum had a really messed up childhood, like 10 times worse than mine, like, really bad childhood. Whereas I don't know where my dad's come from. I haven't talked to my dad in five years, maybe six this year. My.
It was a domestic relationship, domestic violence relationship.
Mum only left when I was about.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: She.
[00:11:20] Speaker D: Well, she tried to leave when I was 8 and then only finally left when I was about 10. So about seven years ago they separated.
I kind of feel just like.
I don't know, like, I see all my friends with their perfect families and stuff and, like, they all, like, always with their families and stuff and I kind of like, why can't my family be like that? But, like, I always think of the positive sides. Like, I do have an amazing older sister that helps me with everything and, like, she knows what it's like and she doesn't want it to be as hard for me as it was for her.
I left school. I'm doing a. It's like a bridging course. It's called the UEP program through University of Wollongong. So I can get into uni next year.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: And what are you going to do at uni?
[00:12:13] Speaker D: Bachelor of Primary Education.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: How long have you wanted to be a teacher?
[00:12:19] Speaker D: The past four or five years now. So I've been really set on it.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Are you a determined person?
[00:12:25] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Why do you think you want to be a teacher? Where does that come from?
[00:12:31] Speaker D: Because when I was younger, like, everything with my parents and stuff, I hated going to school because I felt like I was different from all the other kids and stuff. And there was this one teacher that always, always helped me and just made me feel so much better about being at school and so much better than being like about everything that happened with my parents and stuff. And I kind of just want to do the same for kids, like, as she did to me, because that put like such a huge impact on her and me and like, actually made me want to go to school and stuff like that. So I just want to be like that to other kids because I know how it feels. I always remember her and I'll always be so thankful for her. And yeah, I always say this thing and it's like, children that are loved at home go to school to learn and children that aren't loved at home go to school to be loved. And I always think of that and I always am like, I want to make sure that children feel loved and that they will be okay, like, that I can help them.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Now that you feel like you should or want to leave your sisters.
[00:13:39] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: What's available to you now as a 17 year old in the area?
[00:13:45] Speaker D: Well, hoping I get some more support from CWAX now that I'll be older, like 17.
And they're looking.
There's some units that like DCJ are nominating and they're gonna nominate me for one of them and hopefully I can get into one of them. So I'm not like crowding my sister's house, but it's kind of like a little bit hard and I'm a little bit stuck on it because I'm moving to Wollongong next year for uni. So I don't know whether I should just like, wait it out. Kind of just stay with people until next year and then get a place up there. And there is options of me, like transferring a house up to Wollongong and stuff next year if that's an. If I want to do that and stuff. So there is options. I just, I'm kind of seeing what to do and like, where to do it and when to do it, so.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: And you haven't got your parents to tell you, give you advice?
[00:14:42] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Do you think that's the hardest thing or the not having a stable home?
[00:14:47] Speaker D: I think it's a bit of both. I get very overwhelmed because, like, I'm constantly with someone all the time. I don't get my own space and like, just my own space would be so good for once because I'm always with someone and like, I do a lot of house sitting with one of my good friends and like, I'm always with her and sometimes I'm just like, I really need my own space. Like after we house it, you get to go home and have your own space. But I have to go to people where I don't get my own space. A lot of times when I'm trying to be by myself and have my own space, I'm cleaning my room and like organizing stuff just because I'm on my own and I could do stuff like that.
Weird because I used to have routine of like eating dinner at 6:30, shower by 7:30 and then in bed relaxing by 8:30. I'm kind of just all thrown off and trying to do things where I'm trying to get as much as my own space as I can, where I can't really. So, like, I have my.
Not really my own room. Like I just have a bed in a room, which is nice, but I don't really get to be in it by myself because always, like, there's a kid in my room or something. When I'm so overwhelmed, I just go for walks or get someone to pick me up and take me for a drive. So I'm not with as many people.
Some people can be really nice and help you, which is really great and I appreciate that. But sometimes I feel as though I don't tell as many people because of the stereotypes around people being homeless. Yeah, like that homeless people are just drug addicts and have struggle with alcohol addiction and walk around like the streets starting fights and that it's their fault that they're homeless and stuff like that. I guess you can't really, like, judge someone about their homelessness because they're not the stereotypes that everyone is giving to them. And, like, there are so many people that you don't even realise that are homeless and just trying to get by through life. So just like, be kind, I guess, like, be kind to everyone. If you could just go, was that.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Your wand just pop up?
[00:17:14] Speaker D: Some houses and everyone had a house to live. It made the world so much better.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: The next young woman you'll be meeting in this episode is Shauna.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: My name is shauna. I am 24 years old and I was homeless for roughly six months, living between my car and a motel. When I was 21 years old in 2020, I gave birth to my son.
But yeah, over that, like, first year of his life, things were pretty tough. Me and my partner, my ex partner had a few breakdowns and life just wasn't what I was expecting it to be. With a newborn.
Yeah, we sort of fell apart unfortunately, and we were sort of like. We both lived in a house that we rented together, so we were trying to work out what was going to happen because we didn't want to live together anymore, unfortunately. So, yeah, I sort of slept on the couch for a bit. We sort of traded nights. Sleeping on the couch? Yes, it was pretty difficult. And then it got to the point where I just said, look, I can't be here anymore, unfortunately. So I spent the first night, I think, in my car, which was difficult. With Raphael. No, unfortunately, that was a whole other situation. I sort of left him with his father because that's where I felt he was the safest.
Well, pretty much that afternoon, like I left, was sitting in my car at Margarita going, what am I going to do with myself? I can't. This isn't what I'm going to do. Like, I can't just sit here and do nothing.
I need to make something happen. So I called as many people as I could that afternoon and sort of went, where can I go from here? What is the best plan of action? And I'm not sure if it was such a blur. So I don't know if it was Seawax or like Mission or someone who said calling stuff, they'll get you in something. And then sort of hooked in with Seawax. And they were so helpful.
And then, yeah, I managed to get Linkster home for one week. I'm pretty sure that was all I was allocated. And then in the process of like, after being in Links to Home, I sort of connected with as many agencies in Bega as I could to see what I could do for myself. Because I couldn't be homeless with a small child. It just wasn't viable. And being the mother, I was still breastfeeding him and everything. It was very difficult. He was a year old, so he was able to sort of eat other foods and stuff like that. Yeah. So Links to Home ended. I was in my in and out of my car. I stayed at a motel that I used to work for like a few nights a week just to sort of. So I could have Raphael in my care. Hotel was still. Wasn't ideal for him. It was only a few days a week, but it was still something that I could use. Instead of sleeping in my car, I could have a shower. I could like do all those things that a person needs to do. Obviously during the holiday season they needed those rooms. So it was sort of off and on. But I was able to have Rafael, those days that I was in stable accommodation.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Take me into sleeping in your car. Where would. I mean, how do you do that? Where do you. Cause you want to make yourself safe.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Just sort of wherever I could find somewhere that Was felt secure.
Just park somewhere and stay the night. Oh, I guess it's definitely a difficult situation. Like, you sort of gotta be your own rock at that point. But you do have those moments of like, is this just what it is now? Or like, yeah, it's. It's hard. Like, yeah, I don't even know what words to describe it with. It's like, it's an uncomfortable feeling knowing that, like, you've got nowhere to go, nothing that you can do. You're waiting on all these things to happen, but you've just sort of got to be patient. And that can be really, like, ugh.
Well, I sort of started like the first day. I tried to work out as many options as I could, but obviously these things take time. Like in those waiting periods, you're sort of like, when is it all going to happen? How long am I going to have to live in my car for? And it can be quite gutting, I guess. Like, you don't know when you're going to have a roof over your head next.
I've sort of never really grown up with happily ever after as a kid. My mum, being a single mum, worked a lot and I was like mum to my siblings for quite a bit of it. So, like, growing up, there's been all these little things along the way that sort of build your character. And yeah, I guess I get to this point where it's like, I'm looking at myself, what do I do? And I go, well, I've got to do something. Like, no one else is going to come and pick up these pieces for me. I need to figure it out. So, yeah, sort of put my big girl panties on.
Like, you just got to.
I didn't have any other option at that point. So. Yeah.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Tell me, Shauna, when you were actually living in your car, what were the basic everyday things that were struggling for you?
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, not having a shower. That was really struggling.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Where did you have a shower?
[00:23:02] Speaker B: When I was staying in the motel.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: So, yeah, it was like, I don't know, brushing your teeth, doing those personal hygiene things, like, I don't know, finding somewhere comfortable to go to the toilet as well. I don't know. I don't necessarily feel safe going into a public toilet most of the time and having somewhere to wash your clothes. Like, obviously there's the laundromat and stuff, but that's costly. Yeah, I don't know. I think mainly hygiene and like, basic, like, not having something to cook on either things like that or like, and then the same thing like you've got a. Like, say you're paying. Motel rooms are like 300 a night. Obviously I was, because I knew them, I was able to get something cheaper than that. Minimum rate, you're paying 200 more than $200 a night. Like, say you're on Centrelink because you don't have a job. You get $800 a fortnight. You're spending most of that money on accommodation to stay somewhere. Then you've also got to feed yourself, wash your clothes. You're also trying to find a place and be presentable for a real estate agent so you can get into the unit, you know what I mean? Like, it becomes expensive. It's expensive to be homeless.
A plethora of problems that come along with being homeless. People don't understand because they either haven't been there or it's like, well, just do better.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Did you feel yourself in danger at any time during this time as a young woman sleeping in her car?
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Not necessarily. I'm very. I don't know, I like to think that I'm pretty tough. I'm a big softie. But like, I have that tough exterior and no one can mess with me sort of things.
But I never felt unsafe. I always tried to make sure that I was in a safe position. Like growing up, my dad lived in the city, so he always really taught us street smarts.
It's not comfortable at all.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: No, no.
And did you ever have a good night's sleep?
[00:25:03] Speaker B: No.
Well, you just sort of never know where you're gonna be. Like, you can't. You obviously can't sit in one spot all day. Like people come and go and things like that. Like you probably could, but still not comfortable. So, yeah, sort of go into town, sit around town for a bit, work out what you're doing for the day.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Where would you go? Where would you sit?
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Just the underground car park or at the mall or. Yeah, you can't park there all day either. Keep moving around, working out what you're going to do, like. Yeah.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Were you working all through this time?
[00:25:40] Speaker B: No. So I was still sort of in limbo, I guess. I took. I quit my job when I had Raphael just because I wanted to focus on being a full time parent. Obviously the dream of being a mum wanted to make sure I could give my little one the best start to life and it sort of backfired on me, but it's all right. So I took. I pretty much didn't work in that time. And then it took me a whole other year to sort of get back on my feet and then I got back into the workforce, which was important. I've never sort of not worked, have worked since I was 14 sort of thing. So it was very odd time, but I needed that time to sort of get my head straight.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: And what about your partner at this time? Was he trying to help you or had the relationship breaking down completely?
[00:26:28] Speaker B: It had sort of broken down completely. Obviously we were still trying to do what's best for Rafael in the situation and like have him see me as much as he could. But still, yeah, trying to work out what was going on in that time.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Has your phone been really important through all this?
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Being able to keep in contact with all the services and learn new things, like being able to google what I can do in this situation has been really important. Like obviously links to home comes up and things like that, but homelessness services in the Bega Valley and things like that. Being able to search for rentals every day, that was really helpful rather than walking down to the real estate or. Yeah, especially in this day and age I find there's lots of helpful things like Help Nation that you can access on your phone. I was on Centrelink at the time and sort of trying to work out all the care arrangements and how much I would get paid. But yeah, that was a struggle. They sort of find it really difficult because you need an address for a lot of it. You can't necessarily say no fixed address because they need somewhere to send you everything.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: So what did you do in that case?
[00:27:41] Speaker B: I tried to get as much of it online as I could so I could access it through my phone. But I think they've more transitioned to electronic copies now. But back then it was still a lot of. It was paper copies and things.
I think like homelessness is very invisible to a lot of people because it can be someone just couch surfing or someone just living in their car. You don't notice it when you're doing your everyday travels or going shopping and things like that. You're not paying attention to it obviously, so it's invisible to you. I think a lot more people go through it than we realize and the support is there, the housing isn't. And that's the hardest part. I think if there was more affordable housing, especially for young families or young single people, and then people get stuck living with their parents and that may not be what they want to do or say. Same thing, they have a relationship breakdown or they come become homeless for an X amount of reasons, like they're a young single person now trying to pay for, like, say, $450 in rent by themselves.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: I'd like to ask you what advice you would give to other people who are struggling in a situation of being homeless or facing possible homelessness.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: You're not alone. There's so many people out here that are struggling with the same thing and speak up about it, Talk to people, go and find services. Like, engage yourself with as many people as you possibly can. Because in that time, it can feel so alone. You can feel like you're the only person going through this. It's really tough. But connect yourself with the networks around you. Talk to your friends about it. If you don't have friends, like, talk to anyone, People are willing to listen.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: There are some good services in Bega, aren't there? Yeah, definitely for different age groups. So there's seawacs, which is 16 to 25.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Mission Australia, 25 plus.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Yeah. There's wellways and if you've got kids, Sapphire Neighbourhood Services.
Everyone's so lovely.
Seawacs runs Renchoice Youth and that's been really helpful. Like, that's helped me recently. Like, first, that's so awesome for young people to help them get into housing. But at the same time, like, if you don't know about these services, you're trying to do this all by yourself. It's difficult. It's definitely. It gives you a head start into the rental world. I think, as I said, for me, it's been so helpful. Like, they've helped me for the last three years in my house, be able to afford my rent until I've now gotten back on my feet.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: So you now have two jobs?
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Can you afford a house now?
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Only just, like.
Yeah. So I work two jobs most day of the week and then three jobs one day of the week. And, yeah, like, even with my rent being $380 a week, it's still a struggle sometimes to.
And meet that. Plus groceries.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: It was. I think I was only homeless for five months, maybe, and I was able to find a rental in Bega, which was really lovely, but the guys at seawacs really helped me through all of it. They sent me weekly rentals and however I could. Like, I applied for so many things. I was doing all these documents, trying to make sure everything I was doing was right and being really proactive about everything. So I think that's why I was able to get out of the situation so quickly. But, yeah, it's definitely not fun being homeless.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: I asked Shauna how she felt about her Future now.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: I loved having kids. I want to have more kids. Yeah, I think just having a family, like coming from a broken home.
I just want to have that nice little sweet cozy place where I've got my family and that's so important to me.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: We were privileged to be able to speak with two of the case managers at CWACS South East Women and Children's Services.
In this case, you will meet Naomi.
So Naomi, I wanted to ask you, how many clients do you have under your, you know.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: Good question. Well, let's have a look here.
18.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: And what are the ages of the people you're supporting?
[00:32:42] Speaker C: They range in age from 16 to 25.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: And do you know about how many people the organisation is supporting at the moment?
[00:32:55] Speaker C: All up there are 39.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: So how many of those young people are currently without stable accommodation?
[00:33:07] Speaker C: A lot of them. It's probably easy for me to count the ones that are housed. So eight out of 38 are housed and some of those are. Three of those are in medium term accommodation.
So it's like transitional accommodation. So generally it'd be up to three to six months have somewhere to stay.
But yes, the rest are either in temporary accommodation, in motels or couch surfing.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: And what do you think are the main contributors to their situation?
[00:33:57] Speaker C: There's a million different things. Domestic and family violence, alcohol, drugs, mental health issues.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: That's in their families.
[00:34:09] Speaker C: In their families, yeah. There's also can be issues with the young people themselves having mental health issues and their parents don't know how to deal with it. Or they could have challenging behaviours like anger issues, they could be on drugs or have alcohol problems and generally those come from self medicating themselves to deal with their mental health issues.
And it's a bit of a cycle where, you know, like say you've got alcoholic parents.
Young people see that, they grow up with that and it becomes normalised to them. It can go the other way as well. They can see it and go, no, I'm not going to do that.
And they get on with their lives and they do all the things that we ask them to do and get jobs, go on to lead great lives.
So there's always. There are good stories out there as well. If they're doing all the things that we need them to do, when they've asked and they're meeting all their goals and they're moving forward in their lives, then once they leave the service, then we've got a fairly good indicator that they're going to be okay. It's the ones that Have a lot of trauma in their backgrounds and are incapable of doing the things that we need them to do to succeed. And then they leave the service that you worry about because you don't know what's happened to them and whether they're actually safe and okay. And a lot of the work we do here is everybody's case managed here. And we work in with other services with our clients so that they get a broad range of services that they need. I like working with the clients, I like meeting them, I like hearing their stories and I just like helping them. You know, some of them have some really heart wrenching tales to tell.
Others have come from good, good homes and just find themselves in a difficult situation.
So it's such a broad range, you never know what's going to come through the door and how you again need to work with them to help them.
Another big thing too for people with seeking services is embarrassment. Sometimes that puts them off for actually asking for help, which is a shame because we consider this a safe space here. There's no judgment from us.
It's basically just fallen on hard times and we'll do whatever we can to, to help you get back on your feet, help you get into stable housing.
Housing, really it's such an important thing for people to have. It gives them sense of wealth, sense of pride.
It leads to other things like employment and education. And so many things revolve around housing, like just, even just good nutrition. You know, we've got all these people stuck in motels and they're eating two minute noodles or something they can shove in a microwave or toast or they're getting takeaway, which is expensive.
My advice to the community would be to be kind to each other.
Don't judge anybody for the way they look.
Don't listen to the stereotypes. You know, just because people are young doesn't mean and they've become homeless or they're unemployed. It doesn't mean that they're useless or they're stupid or they're lazy. It doesn't mean any of those things. It means they've just found themselves in a bad situation.
And when they're linked in with services, we're working towards helping them gain employment, gain housing, do all the things that most people do to support themselves in life. We've got a couple of clients in high school still and I take my hat off to them to continue going to school and deal with all the life issues that they're having to deal with. On top of that, being a teenager, I'm getting Old, but I can still remember being a teenager was horrible, you know, so they're still learning how to be a person really. You know, like their frontal cortex isn't fully developed until they're in at least 25 or until they're late 20s. So that, that does all your reasonable thinking and decision making. So that's not fully formed. So they don't, you know, they don't really have that skill yet that older people have with complex decision making.
We desperately need a roof refuge in Vega. The closest one is Maruya and they don't often have vacancies.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Well, there's only. How many places are there up there?
[00:39:35] Speaker C: I think there's four.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So do you think four would help? A place with four or six places would help here?
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I think you need more than that. Yeah, more than four. We need more social housing. I mean, the wait list is 10 plus years, which is crazy. The priority list for housing is probably still five plus years for that. If we can manage to get people onto the priority housing list, their situations have to be quite dire to get them onto that list. But there's other things that we can do for them, like private rental subsidies that help them pay their rent. It's also good program because you have to set goals with the people and they need to work towards these goals. So by the end of the subsidy it only goes to for three years. By the end of that time they can then support themselves.
There's a few different ones. There's Rent Choice, youth, there is Start Safely. That is for people escaping domestic and family violence. And there is a private rental subsidy. So it's very difficult to get someone who's 16, 17 into a rental because they have no rental history. There is an app that they can use, it's called flatmates.com, something like that. And it's for share housing. People put ads on there for share houses so they can go through that. There's not a lot in this area for it. I think the better solution would be a refuge where you've got support workers there with them. They can help them sort out their day to day stuff, teach them, you know, this is how you go about like say getting your Centrelink in order or you know, how you apply for a rental, what you need to do to maintain that rental, things like that.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Thank you. Beaker Valley is really lucky to have you.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Thank you. I don't feel like I do anything really special.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to episode one of Unhoused Voices from the Thresholds. This was the first of six episodes about housing and homelessness in the Bega Valley. You can follow and comment on social media. The links are in the show notes. There are also links in the show notes if you would like to share your story with us. Unhoused Voices from the Thresholds has been produced by the Bega Valley Shire Library Service and Sapphire Stories made with funds gained through a New South Wales Premier's Department's Social Cohesion Grant, as obtained by the Bega Valley Shire Council.
