Homelessness is proof that our housing system is broken. The neoliberal hot take that hard work and compliance will be rewarded is a fairy tale as fantastical as Cinderella. We have more homelessness in Byron Bay than in the City of Sydney. In March this year Sydney to Katoomba, with a population of 5 million, had a rough sleep count of around 550. From Tweed to Grafton, with a population of 300,000, there were 750 people counted. We get around 10% of the funding. You don’t have to be a demographer to know it doesn’t add up – fiscally or philosophically. Homelessness is shameful. Not for those who are homelessness, but for us. Those who are housed. For our government, for everyone with a portfolio of investment properties, for those of us who flaunt our success. For all of us who passed GO and collected $200, who put hotels on Pall Mall and fined the people who landed there. It’s on us. We have to stop looking away.
We don’t like to see homeless people. So often, we don’t. It makes us uncomfortable. Their lack of safety makes us feel unsafe. We ‘disappear’ people. The first way is by not actually ‘seeing’ them. When we walk past a person who has set up camp in a doorway we avert our eyes. We don’t look at their trolley of broken belongings. The sign that says ‘donations welcome’. The sad creases on their face. The cold on their skin. We don’t see their story. We don’t say hello. We don’t stop to find out their story.
The story of everything that led them to here. The baby that was born plump and loved. The mother that held them close, who could never have imagined her sweet child would be here on this bitter night, on this street. Unloved and alone. Yet here they are, perhaps a father, a brother, an uncle. A writer, or a cook, a plumber, a mechanic, a drover. A man who has run out of options, with no safe future. We don’t see the cuts on his hands, the dirt on his skin. The trauma he may have endured. The lack of hope. Every time we look away we are complicit. Our government looks away. It’s why our homelessness support services are run on charity. They are asked to support those who must beg for assistance, by begging themselves.
Shameful.
The second way we disappear people is with our prejudiced narratives. I’ve heard them in conversations and on Facebook community forums. They say that many homeless people in our region aren’t from here. They’ve moved here from elsewhere for the good weather. So what? That’s not how belonging works. If you are here you belong. Whether you own five properties or five plastic bags. If you are here, you are part of our community. If you are here because you thought things might be better, or change, or that being homeless would be a little easier, then welcome.
The other narrative is that people choose to be homeless, or they somehow deserve it because of their addiction or mental health. No one chooses homelessness. Trauma may make people feel unsafe in certain settings. Addiction is almost always the end result of unaddressed trauma. A health issue that has been made judicial so that traumatised people are traumatised over and over again. It would be impossible to endure homelessness and not have a mental health condition. It’s dehumanising. It’s intolerable. It’s the end cost of our housing boom. And our compassion recession.
The third way we disappear people is by believing that somehow homelessness is their fault. By not recognising the drivers: domestic and family violence, unaddressed trauma, the increased cost of living, the lack of rental protection, and the use of the housing market not for shelter, but for wealth creation. The lack of funding for frontline services means for many people the situation is critical. The census in 2021 told us on any given night 122,494 people are homeless. But we have one million empty homes.
In the meantime, right here, right now, groups like House You are working to create a village, or community campground to provide dignity and safety in the short term until more secure options are available.
And on August 17, I’m participating in The Big Byron Sleepout to raise money for Fletcher Street Cottage – it’s $100 to sign up and you commit to raising $400 with sponsors. Can you join us? Yes, it’s going to be cold, and I probably won’t sleep. But it might be a real way to actually ‘see’ homelessness in our community, and do something. To sign up go to bigbyronsleepout.com.
We have to end homelessness.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
