Since I work from home in the suburbs, I rarely venture into Melbourne’s CBD anymore. But when I did over the most recent school holidays, I was shocked by the large number of homeless people sleeping rough on the sidewalk – something that I had never noticed to such a degree previously.
While walking down Flinders Street, my five year old daughter asked something like “why is that man lying on the ground?”. To which I replied something like “some people aren’t as lucky as us and don’t have a home or a bed to sleep in”. To which my daughter said “but won’t he get cold?” [it was a chilly winter’s day]. We then preceded to walk by numerous other homeless in a similarly precarious situation.
The escalating number of homeless people in Melbourne is the topic of an article published in The Age, which states that homelessness has reached “emergency levels”:
At least 30 homeless camps have been set up around the central city, with tents and sleeping equipment erected in laneways, doorways, on footpaths, under bridges and in private properties.
Drug use and the accumulation of rubbish and filth is often a concern…
Salvation Army major Brendan Nottle said the city was at a crisis point.
“I think it’s overwhelming,” he said.
“We’ve just been through a federal election and there was no mention of homelessness. And yet I think in a lot of people’s minds it is a crisis, not just for our city but for cities around the country.”
Documents obtained by Fairfax Media through freedom-of-information laws detail more than 200 telephone and email complaints made to Melbourne City Council about homelessness in the 15-month period to April this year…
How is it that a city like Melbourne can be awash with empty homes, and yet cannot find the resources to provide shelter for its growing numbers of homeless? Isn’t one of the key jobs of government to provide assistance to the most vulnerable members of society?
How much would it cost to expand the supply of boarding/rooming houses so that people in Melbourne (and elsewhere) have a place to sleep at night? $100 million? $200 million? $500 million? Whatever the figure, it’s likely to be chicken feed in the broad scheme of things.
That a country like Australia can let homelessness become so prevalent, yet receive so little attention from our politicians, is another disgrace to add to the long list of housing failures.
