WORKING OUT OF
HOMELESSNESS
the development of
an innovative education and employment program for homeless single men and
women in inner Sydney
by Colin Robinson
PROJECT AIM
To date strategies
to assist homeless men and women in inner city Sydney have focussed on
providing accommodation and support with the eventual aim of obtaining
independent housing. The emphasis has been on providing services, that will
enable homeless people to maintain a tenancy either in public, private, or
community housing. Education and employment in this context have generally been
given a low priority by crisis accommodation services for single men and women.
When programs have been developed they have been mainly of the 'living' skills
or recreational variety.
While these
programs are important, they have failed to ensure that significant numbers of
single men and women do not become homeless repeatedly. The consistently high
number of homeless people who use the crisis accommodation system on a regular
basis is evidence of this.
The aim of this
research project is to develop a program that places education and employment
at the centre rather than on the periphery of responses to homelessness. By
examining a range of programs both in Australia and overseas, an innovative
model will be developed and piloted at Charles O'Neill House. The model is
expected to have relevance to other inner city, suburban and rural situations.
By piloting a new
approach it is expected that impetus will be given to a further stage of
re-development of crisis accommodation services, particularly in inner city
Sydney. The orientation of these new services will be towards breaking the
cycle of impoverishment that includes homelessness.
INTRODUCTION
Homelessness,
particularly as it affects single men and women in the inner cities of the
developed world, has generated both a large body of literature and a wide
variety of service responses. Australia has produced a number of landmark
publications and has also proven to be at the forefront when it comes to
innovative practice.
Despite this, the
streets and parks of our cities are home to a significant number of single
homeless men and women, the majority being men. As well as those sleeping out
there are many others who reside in unstable and often unsatisfactory rental
accommodation or who are regularly accommodated in the inner city crisis
hostels.1
Over the past
decade research has shifted away from explaining homelessness as a 'housing
problem' to more complex analyses which includes social and economic factors
and individual factors. Generally three sets of factors are believed to
interact in the experience of homelessness. These are:
* Structural
factors including adverse housing and labour markets; rising levels of poverty;
family restructuring.
* Individual risk
factors including poverty; unemployment; sexual or physical abuse; family
disputes and breakdown; background of care; experience of prison; drug or
alcohol misuse; school exclusion; poor mental or physical health.
* Specific events
that 'trigger' homelessness including: leaving the parental home after
arguments, marital or relationship breakdown; eviction; widowhood; leaving
care; leaving prison; sharp deterioration in mental health; increase in alcohol
or drug misuse.
In Working Out
of Homelessness it will be argued that while this categorisation of factors
is useful, particularly as it moves away from the housing problem paradigm,
homelessness should primarily be considered as part of a continuum of poverty.
Current research indicates that even for those single men and women
experiencing a short-term crisis of homelessness, it is more often than not one
more stage in a life marred by poverty.
It is also
important to acknowledge that poverty has emotional, physical and spiritual
dimensions as well as economic causes and effects. To assist people out of
homelessness we have to understand how these elements interact in a person's
life. We also have to be a lot clearer
on what it's like to be poor in a country with great material wealth, where the
daily purchasing of consumer goods and experiences is the economic imperative.
In Part One of Working
Out of Homelessness the questions of how people become poor, what the experience
of poverty is like and how do we best assist people out of impoverishment, are
examined. The work of Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Leeds
University, England and Earl Shorris, a freelance writer and researcher in the
United States, informs this discussion. Information gained from a literature
search of the topic and a study trip to England in April/May of 2001 provides
further evidence suggesting that approaching homelessness as a distinct problem
in its own right is counter productive.
Parallel to
conducting the research, the Charles O'Neill House program has been established
as part of the overall response to homelessness by the Matthew Talbot Hostel,
the largest crisis accommodation service for single men in Sydney. The research
has been informing the development of Charles O'Neill House and the experience
in the program has influenced the direction of the research. This interaction
is described in Part Two of Working Out of Homelessness.
In recent times
discussion about poverty in Australia has been conducted in the context of the
welfare reform debate 3. On one hand there has been influence of the
'behavioural poverty' school of thought that argues people are poor because
they are indolent and make bad life choices. Employment of any kind is seen to
be the ultimate answer to poverty primarily because it provides structure and
discipline in a person's life and fosters a healthy work ethic. Unfortunately
poor people often have to be coerced into seeking work, as they have become
dependant on overly generous government welfare payments.
On the other hand
there are those who point to structural reasons for poverty. These reasons
include high levels of long term unemployment, lack of social infrastructure
and a frayed social security net. However, the solution is also seen to be
employment (full-time) as it provides an income for a decent standard of living
and restores confidence and self-esteem to the individual and their family.
What needs to be recognised is that many people find it
extremely
difficult to gain full-time, secure and well-remunerated employment because
there are not enough of these jobs to go around as a result of economic
restructuring. Low skilled workers have little chance unless their skills are
significantly upgraded through training. And if people are unable to gain
satisfactory work, as a community we are under obligation to provide higher
income support payments, more public housing and better public services
generally to ensure people do not live in poverty.
While there is
merit in examining both sides of the argument there is a need to also look at
some fresh approaches to understanding and alleviating poverty. In many ways
the behavioural versus structural debate is no longer valid in the
contemporary, post-modern world we inhabit. For example, is full-time secure
employment for all citizens a sensible or achievable aspiration? With the
advent of globalisation, capital moves freely around the world establishing
itself where labour is cheap and plentiful. Can either coercion or skills
training for the poor, particularly in a developed country like ours with
relatively high wages and the expectation of reasonable conditions, change this
reality?
These and similar
questions must be addressed if we are to successfully eradicate poverty and
it's manifestations such as homelessness. Working out of Homelessness
does not pretend to provide solutions to macro problems such as these, but
points in some directions that may be fruitful for policy makers to explore.
PART ONE
1. A Definition of
Poverty
Throughout
history, and in many parts of the world today, poverty means living under the
constant threat of death by hunger, thirst or disease. Few people in a
developed country like Australia experience this form of absolute material
deprivation. But does this mean no one is in poverty?
Poverty in
Australia is often defined in terms of what are the acceptable community
standards of material well being. If your income is below 25% of average weekly
earnings then you are said to be living below the poverty line. Family size and
housing costs are also factored in to this equation to give a more accurate
definition. By this measurement approximately 12% of all Australians are said
to be living in poverty.
However, Zygmunt
Bauman in his book Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (1998) argues that
the phenomenon of poverty does not merely boil down to material deprivation and
bodily distress. Poverty, Bauman states, is also a social and psychological
condition:
Poverty means
being excluded from whatever passes for normal life. This results in loss of
self- esteem. Poverty also means being cut off from the chances of whatever
passes in a given society for a happy life. This results in resentment.
Earl Shorris in
his book Riches for the Poor (2000) provides the following definition as
developed by a group of young women from an education program in the South
Bronx, New York.
Privation-
1 Lack of money
for current needs
2 Lack of capita,
both real and intellectual
3 Inadequate
housing
4 Insufficient
food and fresh water
5 Inadequate
clothing
6 Unhealthy living
conditions, including lack of heat and hot water and sanitation
7 No access to medical
care
8 Lack of
education
9 Unsafe
conditions
10 Lack of
communication
11 Unsatisfactory
social life
12 Dearth of the
objects of culture
Oppression-
1 Enduring defeat,
lifelong and passed onto the next generation
2 Excluded from duties
and rewards of citizenship
3 Subject to
coercion
4 Without recourse
5 Despised [not
hated] by the powerful
6 Death not
mourned by the community
7 Limited choice
of food, clothing, housing, employment, place of residence and recreation
8 Reduced to
pleasures of the body
9 Responses
limited to passivity or violence
10 Prevented from
enjoying marriage and family life
11 Excluded from
education, schooling limited to training
12 Fungible, in
economic terms more like goods than persons
From these young
women any poverty line based on income alone would not provide an accurate or
full picture of impoverishment. It is also of interest that they compiled two
lists one headed 'privation' and the other oppression'. Poverty is not only
about missing out on the things money can buy, it is also connected with those
forces that subjugate the human mind and spirit.
2. Consumerism and
the Surround of Force
Bauman points out
that over the latter part of the 20th century we have moved from being a society
of producers, built on the need for a large labour force, to that of consumers.
In a consumer
society a normal life is the life of consumers, preoccupied with making their
choices among the panoply of publicly displayed opportunities for pleasurable
sensations and lively experiences. A happy life is defined by catching many
opportunities, catching the opportunities most talked about and thus most
desired.
Those in poverty
are unable to participate as fully fledged consumers. They are marginalised and
made to feel inadequate. From privation
to oppression
and back again,
the cycle of poverty is strengthened and the bonds become difficult to break.
Earl Shorris
explains this in the following way:
The poor live in a
surround of force which differentiates them from those inside the circle of
power. The forces of the surround do not affect the poor, they affect poor
persons, not even families but persons, one at a time. Everyone who lives
within the surround lives alone. The weight of the forces separates them,
splintering the body of the poor like glass underfoot, driving the shards of
family, community, society into feckless privacy.
Shorris identifies
a number of elements that create the surround of force. These include hunger,
luck, hurrying and pressure, isolation, family violence, neighbours, landlords,
meanness, drugs, prison, criminals, illness, police, abuse, and ethnic
antagonisms.
He goes on to say:
.
Within the
surround of force, people live in poverty and panic. They
scurry, going from
place to place, looking for food, a new apartment, medical care for a child.
The iron wall of the surround pens them into a limited area, but the panic
inside the surround has no limits; they may do nothing and everything,
suffering from excesses of both order and liberty. In other words there are no
constants within the surround, no reason, no stability, and no rules; there is
only force.
One of the
clearest examples demonstrating how the surround of force operates is drug
addiction. According to Shorris drug addiction comes closest to a pure act of
suicide.
Drug addiction
generally includes both the death of the conscious rational person that occurs
following the administration of the drug, and immersion in a drug culture.
Either may lead to actual death resulting from a drug overdose, disease or
violent confrontation in the dealer/customer relationship that is more like
indentured servitude than a business exchange.
The alternative to
life within the structure, or surround of force is to create a new structure
one that interferes with the mirror of force at its inception. Drugs are
increasingly the method that is 'chosen' by the poor to self medicate
against the forces
that denigrate them. Unfortunately, as Shorris points out, death is often the
end result.
Another important
element contributing to impoverishment is boredom. Recently at a meeting to
discuss the review of services to homeless men in inner Sydney, one of the
evaluation team commented that boredom was the common denominator of all the
men using the services. In her words:
They are all bored
witless!
Bauman picks up
the theme of boredom as it effects unemployed people living in the consumer
society.
The most popular
word used to describe being unemployed is boring. Not being bored ever is the
norm of the consumer's life. The
consumer society ensures that desires are aroused faster than the time it takes
to placate them and that the objects of desire were replaced quicker than the
time it took to get bored with their possession. To alleviate boredom one needs
money - a great deal of money if one wishes to stave off the spectre of boredom
fore-ever. Money is the entry permit to places where remedies for boredom are
pedaled [shopping malls, amusement parks, fitness centres] Common remedies
against boredom are not accessible to those in poverty.
Unfortunately the
remedies that are available are often socially unacceptable and dangerous. Far
from making bad choices the poor have no choice and are trapped in a daily
struggle bereft of meaning. Bauman sums up the situation by stating:
These days the
sufferings of the poor do not add up to a common cause. Each flawed consumer
licks his or her wounds in solitude. Flawed consumers are lonely, they do not
see how society can help, they do not hope to be helped, they do not believe
that their lot can be changed by anything but a lottery win.
3. The Clemente
Course
In the early 1990s
Earl Shorris was conducting research into poverty in the United States. While
on a visit to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security-prison
fifty miles north of New York City, he met Viniece Walker. In prison Walker had
completed a college degree with a major in philosophy. Shorris reports the
following conversation:
Earl Shorris: Why
do you think people are poor?
Viniece Walker: You got to begin with the children.
You've got to teach the moral life of downtown to the children. And the way you
do that, Earl, is by taking them downtown to plays, museums, concerts,
lectures, where they can learn the moral life of downtown. And then they won't
be poor anymore.
Shorris: What you mean is...
Walker: What I mean is what I
said, a moral alternative to the street.
What Walker meant
by "the moral life of downtown" was something that had happened to
her. As a result of her education a transformation occurred and she had
discovered the extent of her humanness. Walker learned, through her education
in the humanities, to reflect on her experience, to make choices and to act
accordingly.
It was not release
from poverty that interested her; she had been in prison long enough to know
that release had nothing to do with autonomy. The moral life does not consist
in being acted upon, but in acting. Autonomous persons act.
Walker did not
believe anyone could step directly out of the surround of force. First they
would have to become autonomous persons. People had to have opportunities to
re-create themselves through a recognition of their humanness. Then the
surround of force could be overcome. Jobs and money were ancillary aspects of
getting out of poverty, outcomes rather than process. Education in the
humanities gave people process.
Work is not the
structural solution to poverty if the work provides less than a living wage. As
such it is no antidote to force, it is merely force in the form most useful to
those with power. Work must of course be the greatest part of the antidote to poverty,
but work within the surround of poverty is disorderly. The force of such work
produces force in response, increasing the panic of the poor within the
surround; the worker is not rebellious merely unruly. The poor do not suffer
from sloth or indolence, but from force. If the antidote to force can be found,
work will follow, if there is work to be done.
In the last decade
Shorris has set up a number of programs, called the Clemente Course, in the
United States. Each one has at its basis teaching the humanities to people
living impoverished lives. However, curricula have been developed to reflect
local needs or particular cultural groupings. For example, in an area where the
major ethnic group is Mayan Indian, the curriculum focuses on Mayan history,
art, philosophy and religion rather than on Western humanities.
Shorris writes:
The Clemente
Course begins with the idea that the poor are human and that the proper
celebration of their humanity is in the public world as citizens. To see the
Clemente course as no more than a college preparation program for
underprivileged people would diminish the celebration of the humanities and the
possibilities of the human spirit that are the joy of the work.
In his book
Riches for the Poor, Shorris gives many examples of how the education
process has been successful in assisting people out of poverty. While it is not
the complete answer it represents a different approach from the mutual
obligation or skills based training that has predominated in Australia. In many
ways it represents a return to 19th century notions of providing broad based
education for the working class through the mechanics institute and public
library systems.
Finally, the
following is taken from the speech Shorris delivered to the first participants
in a Clemente Course.
The humanities are
a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning to
reflect on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is turned
against you. I think the humanities are one of the ways to become political,
and I don't mean political in the sense of voting in an election, but political
in the broad sense. The way Pericles, a man who lived in ancient Athens, used
the word 'politics' to mean activity with other people at every level, from the
family to the neighbourhood to the broader community to the city/state in which
you live. Do all rich people or people who are in the middle class know the
humanities? Not a chance. But some do. And it helps. It helps
to live better and
enjoy life more. Will the humanities make you rich? Yes, absolutely. But not in
terms of money. In terms of life.
4. Current
Literature about Homelessness
Much recent
literature on homelessness stresses that people have as great a need for social
contact and purposive activity as they have for accommodation. It can be argued
that there has been far too much emphasis in homeless programs, such as the
Supported Accommodation Assistance Program, on where people sleep the night and
not enough on what happens in their day to day life. Homeless services for
single men and women in particular, have seen a large and continuing investment
in crisis beds, yet day time activities of an educational or employment related
nature remain a low priority. Consequently, many single homeless men and women
drift around the streets or hang around the hostels with little to do. This
reinforces their impoverishment and heightens their sense of hopelessness.
Crisis hostels are
not always popular with homeless people. Because of their size and diverse
clientele some see them as rough places where dormitories or other communal
spaces have to be shared with potentially threatening strangers, who may have
drink and drug problems. For others there are too many rules, for example
barring pets, partners or drink. Alternatively relaxed programs and lack of
rules may bring people in off the streets but this creates difficulties if
people are not encouraged to move on from that stage. As a report from the
Rough Sleepers Initiative in London notes:
Helping people
rebuild their lives is as much a part of coming in from the cold as building
more hostel beds or setting up new outreach teams.
A number of
differences were noted between accommodation and support services in England
and those in inner Sydney. In England:
* Services tended
to be more specialised with some focussing on drug/alcohol use, some mental
health, some ex-prisoners etc.
* Accommodation is
generally single room with shared communal areas but the majority
self-contained.
* All services
demanded a high level of participation by residents in operating the services
and in decision-making.
* Accommodation
services catered for single men and women rather than being single sex
facilities.
Unlike major
cities in England, inner Sydney also has numbers of mobile services entering
the CBD and surrounds to provide food, material aid and comfort to homeless
people. While the charitable impulses behind these ventures should be
acknowledged as a compassionate and caring response, the continuing emphasis on
ensuring basic material needs are catered for may only serve to perpetuate
dependency. This is contrary to the arguments presented earlier about
autonomous persons and their ability to act.
In England on the
street food services have been discouraged and day/night centres provided
instead. Professionals, who engage with homeless people using an intensive case
management approach, staff these centres. It should also be noted that English
day/night centres and hostels are 'wet' and work on harm minimalisation
principles rather than abstinence.
From this research
four main principles emerge. Services need to be:
* Flexible and
holistic responses, tailored to meet the needs of individual homeless people.
* Concentrate on
long-term solutions, not just crisis intervention.
* Respect most
homeless people's preference for non-institutionalised accommodation as far as
possible.
* Involve homeless
people in service evaluation and service development.
Education and
employment has a more central role in homeless services in England than in
Australia. Most services were linked to employment seeking and/or generating
programs. This has taken some time to establish as the old hostel culture were
initially suspicious of the change in emphasis towards employment.
From the English
experience employment and training schemes for homeless people need to be
highly flexible and need to focus on helping people to sustain employment
and/or other meaningful activity in the longer term. Those not engaging with
the training or employment services on offer had even more disadvantaged
backgrounds. A key task is to encourage
homeless people to participate in schemes in order to counteract their previous
poor experience of schooling. 4
From the
experience in England it has been found that projects which encourage homeless
people to participate include:
* Operating in
hostels and day centres instead of formal educational settings.
* Covering other
topics of concern to homeless people as well as employment related skills. At
the same time concentrate on transferable work skills.
* Flexibility in
subject matter and time commitment required.
* Building in
incentives such as travel and meal allowances and access to trips and holiday
courses.
* Following up
participants who miss sessions and offering courses for an initial short
period.
* Work on a one to
one basis or small groups.
* Early assessment
of learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
* Access to
qualifications on completion of the course.
* Sessions on
vocational paths to help people to decide their future.
* More active
encouragement by hostels for their residents to engage in work or training.
* The development
of job support teams to provide more intensive help with finding and sustaining
employment.
It needs to be
recognised that some homeless people may need a lot of help over a long period
of time. Their crisis and complexity of need is not something that can be
solved overnight. If employment is not possible then people should be assisted
to regain confidence to re-integrate into the community in other ways. Building
self-esteem and confidence is primary if impoverishment is to be reversed. The
current big stick and little carrot approach favoured by some decision makers
in Australia, only serves to intensify the surround of force as identified by
Earl Shorris.
PART TWO
1. Redevelopment
of Inner City Hostels
In the early 1990s
a major redevelopment of the inner city crisis hostels was undertaken in both
Sydney and Melbourne. In Sydney hostel bed numbers were significantly reduced
and replaced by medium term shared or individual housing in the community,
generally not in inner city areas. Men placed in outreach accommodation are
provided with low level support and are expected to move into longer term
housing within a 12-month period. Aged care hostels were established to cater
for the older homeless men who were physically frail. Intensive case management
was also introduced, although slowly, in the major hostels.
While the inner
city redevelopment was generally viewed as being positive with improved
outcomes for many homeless men, some in the homeless field felt the process in
Sydney fell short. Comparisons with more 'radical' developments in Melbourne,
(where bed numbers were decreased even more, day centres were split from crisis
accommodation, special health and mental health teams established and medium
and longer term accommodation provided in the inner city), led some to conclude
that the Sydney experiment largely failed. The cycle of homelessness was not
being broken in enough cases, and in fact, some argue, the continued existence
of large hostels and other services, such as food vans, only serves to
perpetuate homelessness in the inner city.
In 1997 an
appraisal of the Matthew Talbot Hostel, the largest of the men's crisis
services, was conducted. One recommendation that emerged from this review
process was to redevelop a building operated by the Talbot in Surry Hills 5 to
become a living skills training centre to assist men to make a successful
transition from crisis to semi-independent and independent living in the community.
With the introduction of outreach accommodation more homeless men have been
given the opportunity to re-establish their lives in the community. However,
not all men are able to succeed in a low support environment. Many homeless men
who come to the inner city crisis services, need extra time and resources to
overcome their difficulties and to gain the skills necessary for successful
independent living. The redevelopment of Charles O'Neill House created the
opportunity to devise a new and innovative response to this situation.
The four storey
building, which had been a nurses home, has been extensively renovated. The
first or ground floor contains offices, meeting rooms and some common
recreational areas. The other three floors are divided into clusters of twelve
single rooms with shared kitchen, lounge and bathroom facilities. Two clusters
each on the second and third floors and one cluster on the fourth. This allows
for a total of sixty residents, however, it is expected that given the
structure of the program, described in the next section, no more than 40 -50
will be resident at any given time.
2. The Charles
O'Neill House Program
As a result of
consultations and research conducted throughout 2000 and early 2001, it was
decided to adopt the following key principles in designing the Charles O'Neill
Program.
* A welcoming,
non-institutional environment with residents' dignity and privacy respected.
* Emphasis on
assertive engagement with residents including a high level of participation in
decision making.
* Educational,
employment and living skills programs tailored to individuals and conducted on
one-to-one or small group basis.
* Brokerage of
external services to meet the needs of individual residents eg mental health,
drug/alcohol rehabilitation, Centrelink, employment programs etc.
The three major
components of the program would revolve around:
* Restoring
residents' mental and physical health.
* Enhancing
dignity and self-esteem through education and meaningful activity including
employment.
* Providing
opportunities to access quality long-term housing.
The program would
need to be structured as the residents would be coming from generally chaotic
backgrounds. However, within the structure there needed to be opportunities for
participants to create structure meaningful to them rather than it all being
imposed by management and staff. An example of how this theory worked in
practise is the following list of classroom procedures developed and agreed
upon by the first group of men in the program:
1. On time.
2. Break 2.20 -
2.40 p.m.
3. Own your
opinions, thoughts and feelings.
4. Respect
difference and diversity.
5. Freedom to stay
in group or withdraw if upset or angry.
6. Group will
respect individual choice in going or staying if upset or angry.
7. If conflicting
opinions or ideas, no aggression or attacking verbally other individuals.
8. No
discrimination of any kind.
9. Acknowledge
right to pass if topic of discussion disturbs.
Another important
aspect of the program would be that it was primarily an education program
rather than an emergency accommodation service. Residents, men initially with
singe women being introduced to the program after the initial pilot stage,
would be taken on at three monthly intervals in groups of twelve. They would
enroll for the first stage only after thorough assessment 6 of their needs and
abilities to complete the course. In this respect Charles O'Neill House is more
like a university college than a shelter or refuge.
To enable this
education focus to become reality, discussions were held with teachers from
Sydney Grammar School to discuss the feasibility of conducting a humanities
based program similar to the Clemente Course. A number of teachers embraced the
notion enthusiastically and agreed, on a completely voluntary basis, to conduct
classes.
Similarly, Sydney
TAFE Outreach based at Ultimo agreed to provide employment skills related
training and would accredit these courses to enable participants to gain
entrance to TAFE on campus.
Centrelink was
also approached to waive mutual obligation requirements from residents in the
program. This was also agreed to and a good working relationship with this
government agency has been the result.
Part of the
program is the requirement that residents do as much of the 'housework' as is
practicable. Their rooms and cluster areas are completely their responsibility
with daily cluster meetings held to iron out any domestic or other
difficulties. The cluster meetings are the major decision making body for
residents.
The program is run
in three, three month stages with a fourth one being completed either in
residence or in accommodation in the community. The three stages reflect the
components of the program noted above. In the first the education program
designed on the Clemente Course is the primary element with TAFE providing more
employment skills orientated classes. Most sessions in stage one are conducted
at Charles O'Neill House.
The second stage
continues with TAFE courses but this time off residence and focussed more on
the career path chosen by participants. A further two days a week are in work
experience positions. The third stage focuses on obtaining and retaining paid
employment and further education. Housing options will also be investigated
with case managers from the Matthew Talbot Outreach Team working with residents
to find appropriate placements. The final stage will be placement in housing.
On-going support
will be provided to residents beyond the time that they are resident at Charles
O'Neill House. This will be dependent on need and mutual agreement. The nine to
twelve month residency is expected to lay the solid ground needed to overcome
the impoverishment they have experienced. However, for some, longer periods of
assistance may be needed once they are back in the community if they are not to
sink into poverty once again.
The following is a
description of the Charles O'Neill House Program written by one of the men who
was in the first intake of residents.
WHAT, WHY, WHERE?
Charles O'Neill
House is a structured environment with an emphasis on developing
self-knowledge, education and personal development. What it is for cannot be
generalized. It can only be answered by the individual. It is different for
everybody which is why it is unique. Therefore the program gives me personally
a sense of getting my life organized.
The program is not
for everybody; the only requirement is honesty to yourself about yourself.
The program can
reorganize you, give you a feeling of getting back in control; if you allow it
to. If you put up barriers, have expectations about the program you will have
difficulties. But if you are willing to see the opportunities and go with them,
whatever they are or might be for you, there is an endless corridor of open
doors. You only have to take the first step. The program is capable of
achieving your desires.
The pathways to
success are in place along with the guidence to show you the way.
At first you may
not realize where you are going or for that matter what the program actually
is. That doesn't matter. You just need to be honest about your internal
identity not your external appearance. It's the realization of where you can go
and what you are capable of achieving. There are no boundaries in the program
no matter what your circumstances are, no matter what others think.
Your goals and
visions may have been lost in your journey through life but I believe that
using the program as a Vehicle you can find them once more. I believe that when
you decide where you are going, and only then, the program as a vehicle can
help you find your goals and visions once more. The program is only a means for
that purpose. The program paints your own picture for whatever purpose you
reach for.
3. Profile of
Participants
Recent research at
the four major inner city hostels for men, gives an indication of the education
and work background of potential participants in the Charles O'Neill House
program. Of the 60 men who have been interviewed for the Pathways into
Homelessness project, very few finished high school with the majority
leaving at 15 or 16 years of age. Those who did further education generally did
so through a trade apprenticeship. Some attended job skills training courses at
TAFE. Only a handful of those with trade or TAFE qualifications are currently
using them.
Some of the
interviewees are working full time but these are in low pay occupations such as
kitchen hand. Others have part-time work like delivering pamphlets or
conducting traffic counts or obtain casual jobs labouring. The majority,
however, are unemployed and have been so for lengthy periods of time.
Last year an
action/research project aimed at assisting rough sleepers in Wolloomooloo 7
conducted in-depth interviews with 27 men. From the information gathered it was
possible to build the following profile of a "typical" rough sleeper:
* Male;
* Aged between 25
and 40;
* Of
Anglo-Australian cultural descent;
* Who is probably
from interstate;
* With alow
standard of education, and lacking in any useful skills (though there were
exceptions);
* With either a
current chronic dependency (either substance abuse or gambling, or both), or a
history of battling a dependency;
* In generally
less than satisfactory physical health;
* With little or
no income and no assets;
* In receipt of
either the Newstart benefit, or the Disability Support Pension;
* Whose family
background was characterised by the experience of multiple trauma events, such
as parental rejection or violence of one form or another.
This is generally
a fair description of homeless men who will participate in the Charles O'Neill
House program. The following story written by one of the men participating in
the Charles O'Neill House program, provides a clearer insight into the nature
of an impoverished life.
NO SYMPATHY
My father left
when I was 2. I have no recollection of him and have never seen him since. My
mother was a beautiful lady, who had a tormented soul. She had the biggest
heart, everyone loved her, and she was an alcoholic running from the pain of
her childhood. Things would be great for months on end and then the alcoholic
binge would start, strange men and many a night looking through a smashed
window. Comforting my mother hoping she would pass out. Putting on soft music,
to try and soothe her if the record player hadn't gone through the window.
Holding her, comforting her, praying the alcohol-fuelled fire had gone out.
When you are
young, adults are like giants and are terrifying when they are smashing the
place to bits. Again!
Bandaging my
mothers slashed wrists, after she had awoken me beating on my bedroom door in
the middle of the night, blood everywhere.
Or other times,
mum's in the bathroom pissed, is she going to the toilet or is she crying out
for help again in her strange way. "What are you doing in there? Let me
in." Her wrists a crazy criss-cross lattice work of scars, from her many
attempts of saying I can't cope with the pain.
Sometimes it was
off to hospital. The neighbors had called the police, probably because of the
hysterical shrieking of my mother.
The next day! I'm
14 years old. I'm with my first girlfriend. We are scrubbing the carpet with
bleach. The blood stains run from the bathroom up the hallway to my bedroom
door. There is dry blood around a stale wine glass. The house is eerily quiet
today, from the drunken rampage of the night before. Everything is smashed.
Again! I feel so ashamed. Won't somebody come and help.
15 years old. I'm
living by myself, working full time and studying at night.
18 years old. I'm
a manager at McDonalds, when one night at work a friend calls and says my mum
is in hospital. I fly to Adelaide, walk into intensive care, my mother has
burns to 80% of her body. One arm is amputated. She has been on fire, which she
had lit in a drunken rage. Two months later she dies. My heart is broken. I am
crushed.
This is when I
meet my false friend, gambling. I am enchanted and intoxicated. I go crazy,
gambling, running away from agony and grief. Within two years I had gambled
everything I could lay my hands on- inheritance, stealing from work, borrowed
money, hocked goods, rent money, food money, anything I could use to feed my
insatiable gambling addiction.
21 years old. I am
on a mission to destroy myself. It's the middle of the night. I'm screaming and
crying with torment and rage while hurtling down the streets as fast as my
motor bike could go. Running red lights and going through intersections at top
speed without looking. I am reckless and I don't give a fuck!
21st birthday. I
am smashed, everybody is buying me drinks. I've lost my keys to my 10th floor
unit. I put a brick through the glass door, the entrance to the unit. I then go
to the stairwell on the 10th floor and smash the windows there, climb out and
jump three meters to my balcony, just grabbing on with my arms and pulling
myself up. I was so drunk I could only vaguely remember this the next morning.
I could easily have died, but so what I didn't care.
22 years old. I'm
living on the streets. A hopeless shell of a young man, utterly desolate and
unable to cope with life. No family to help only a younger brother doing his
best to cope with his own life.
22 years old. I am
in a one year rehabilitation program with the Salvation Army for my gambling.
For four years I did groups, programs, counseling, courses, retreats, therapy,
meditation, prayer. I read books, explored my spirituality, I did whatever I
could to stay sane.
26 years old. One
day I am crying for the first time I can remember. For two months I howled with
grief, hours on end every day. This was one of the hardest periods of my life
and also one of the most beautiful and rewarding.
27 years old. I
take ecstasy for the first time and party for three years. I have the most incredible
experiences and for the first time in my life I have periods of total freedom
and feelings of total connectedness. And it is manufactured and false and the
things I am running away from start to catch up to me. I become depressed and
paranoid and feel the pain of knowing I'm still hiding from life.
30 years old. I
slowly give up the drugs and I still find life difficult to cope with. Unable
to stand up for myself in work situations, unable to maintain long- term
relationships or friendships. Deep down I still feel like there is something
wrong with me and every 2 to 3 months, when the pain of not feeling good enough
becomes too intense, I'd take drugs to run away.
31 years old. I am
sick for six weeks and the doctors can't work out what is wrong with me. Seeing
Specialists and not working my money starts to run out and I'm finding it hard
to face up to people and life. I go on a two week drug binge, having copious
amounts of ecstasy, speed and cocaine. I can't pay the rent, I can't talk to
people, I can't go on. I've had enough, it's time to change.
So now I'm at
Charles O'Neill House taking responsibility for my life. I'm here to take a
stance and face my demons. Charles O'Neill provides a structured environment
where I can take time and learn to take complete control of my life.
So don't feel
sorry for me, because I feel incredibly lucky and grateful for where I'm at and
the lessons that I'm learning. What an amazing experience to be part of a
community that is working towards hope and change. I am surrounded by people
who want to help, and people who have the courage to do something with their
lives.
I write this story
to illustrate what sort of person you might find here, and this is just a small
glimpse of my life. My life has been incredibly rich with experience. I have no
regrets and wouldn't change my life for anything. I gain strength and wisdom
from my past and anything is possible for my future. The choice is mine.
4. The First Group
of Participants
Of the first 12
men commencing the first stage of the program:
* Two left before
completion.
* One left on
completion to continue living as an itinerant labourer.
* Nine completed
the program and have now entered stage two. All of these men have obtained work
placements in areas ranging from television production to community services to
boat repairs.
Staff and the
volunteer teachers report remarkable changes both in the men undertaking the
program and in their own attitudes. At this stage the theory of teaching
humanities to people in poverty appears to be standing the test of practice.
Already the Charles
O'Neill House program has effected the operations of the Matthew Talbot Hostel.
At the time of writing plans are being developed to change the scope and
emphasis of the services provided there in the light of the experience at
Charles O'Neill House. These developments will be the subject of a further
report early in 2002.
Finally, the whole
program, even given the high level of volunteer involvement, has been costed at
around $800,000 per year. Staffing levels require at least 10 full time
professional staff and there are the costs of full board and other services.
Resident contributions are expected to raise some of this cost but a $650,000 -
$700.000 deficit would be the result if this where the only in coming income.
To some this is extremely expensive given only 40-50 residents will complete
the program in any one year. But it can be argued that the costs to the
community are far less than if the participants continued to live impoverished
lives.
Conclusion
The implications
of Working Out of Homelessness deserve further consideration in the context of
the overall welfare reform strategy. In many ways to view the findings from the
research, and their application in the Charles O'Neill House program, as a
response to homelessness is to miss the points noted in Section One.
Homelessness is not a discrete circumstance. It is one part of an overall
picture of impoverishment that encompasses more than material deprivation. To
address poverty requires a total response with a particular emphasis on
assisting people to realise their humanness and to be exposed to the process of
reflection. This way people have an opportunity to develop as autonomous beings
with the power to act instead of being isolated in the surround of force.
The research
agrees that the Clemente Course model devised by Earl Shorris provides a unique
approach to the problem of poverty.
However, in the Charles O'Neill House program other practical elements
have also been introduced 8 and the course is residential. If similar courses
were established for other groups in the community they would also have to
develop their own character to reflect these differences. Homeless hostels and
refugees are well-placed to build on the Charles O'Neill House program but
there is no reason why neighbourhood centres or employment services could not
adapt the course for their own needs.
The issues raised
by a sociologist like Zygmunt Bauman also deserve a wider audience. If we have
become the consumers of goods and experiences he claims we are, how should the
poor, the flawed consumers, be expected to resist the exhortation to buy? Would
people in poverty be no longer impoverished if they had incomes enabling them
to become successful consumers? Perhaps the question; what constitutes a rich
life is one more decision makers should ponder. These are difficult questions
but ones that failed to receive much attention at the height of the welfare
reform debate. Partially this is because the debate from all sides failed to
grapple with the lives people actually lead. But we have to come to terms with
the widening gap between those who fit into the post modern world and those who
are being left on the margins.
Further Work
It is suggested
that:
·
A series of
seminars be called in various locations around Australia to discuss the
findings of this research. To date three such seminars have been held in
Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin. However, the audience at each was small and
selected. Despite this the discussion at each was extremely valuable in testing
the material.
· During 2002 participants,
staff and volunteers at Charles O’Neill House should be formally interviewed at
the end of each stage to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Those
leaving the program should also be followed up to see how they progress back in
the community.
· The Charles O’Neill House
program should be examined in the context of Indigenous communities, public
housing estates and with young people. The program could be readily adapted to
serve the needs of a range of groups.
· The program should also be
investigated in the context of the proposed Personal Support Program PSP.
References
Anderson, I.
Inclusion through Collaboration - Approaches to Tackling Homelessness in the
U.K. Policy and Practise Unit, University of Stirling, Scotland. 2000
Bauman, Z. Work,
Consumerism and the New Poor. Open University Press, Buckingham. 1998.
Fitzpatrick, S.
and Klinker, S. Research on Single Homelessness in Britain. Joseph Rowntree
Foundation and CRASH. 1999.
Hodder, T. Burich,
N. and Teesson, M. Down and Out in Sydney. Mission Australia, St Vincent de
Paul, Wesley Mission, Salvation Army and Haymarket Foundation. 1998.
________Pathways
into Homelessness. Mission Australia, St Vincent de Paul, Wesley Mission,
Salvation Army, Haymarket Foundation and City of Sydney. Umnpublished research.
Due 2002.
Johanson, F and
Robinson, C. Tom Uren Place. St Vincent de Paul Society. 2000.
Robinson, C. The
Hidden Faces of Poverty. St Vincent de Paul Society. 1999.
_________ Living
on the Edge. St Vincent de Paul Society. 1998.
Shelter Scotland.
The Homelesness Task Force First Stage Report. 2000
Shorris, E. Riches
for the Poor - The Clemente Course in the Humanities. WW Norton and Co. New
York, London. 2000.
ENDNOTES
1 The definition
of homelessness most commonly used
reflects this by naming three distinct kinds of homelessness; Primary
homelessness i.e. those sleeping rough; Secondary, those moving from emergency
accommodation, friends' places etc and; Tertiary, those living in accommodation
below minimum community standards e.g. boarding houses, caravan parks.
2 Early indications
from the Pathways into Homelessness research, currently being conducted by T.
Hodder, M. Teeson and N. Burich on behalf of the major inner Sydney homeless
services, bear out this assertion. Final results from this research will be
available mid 2002.
3 Australia used
to refer to welfare as social security. The use of welfare is an import from
the U.S. and is generally used in pejorative sense e.g. welfare bludgers,
welfare dependants, welfare cheats etc.
4 This lack of
involvement may also be attributable to the type of employment orientated
training schemes on offer. As the young women from the Bronx noted as part of
their list of oppression: Excluded from education, schooling limited to
training.
5 The name of the
building prior to redevelopment was Gowrie House. As such it had provided
medium to long term accommodation for 80 men. It has since been re-named
Charles O'Neill House.
6 The main
criterion used in assessing potential residents is their willingness to become
part of the structured environment.
Residents with current mental health, drug/alcohol or gambling problems
have not been excluded. (See below for profile of 'typical' resident). However,
in all instances positive steps to dealing with these problems need to be
initiated or maintained. Those who are
in total abstinence programs are in separate clusters to those still
using. In other words, Charles O'Neill
House runs on principals of harm minimisation.
7 The project was
initiated by a number of NSW government agencies sand was undertaken by staff
from the Matthew Talbot Hostel.
8 There are other
aspects of a future program that need further development such as managing
better relationships with partners, children, family and friends.