This is a place to call home our podcast series on homelessness. In this fifth episode, I speak to Rachel a person with lived experience of homelessness. I thank Rachel and also Rebecca and David who generously shared their experiences with me for this podcast. This episode was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this episode.
I'd like to welcome Rachel today on the podcast, Rachel is someone with lived experience of homelessness and has kindly agreed to speak to us today and share her experiences. So Rachel, you first sought housing public housing when you came to Sydney. So
in 2000, ago approved public housing because we had to vote on children and the bad the details to mental health. So I requested that I have separate housing, the father have his own housing, and that was in the documents we handed up. And I have my own with the children. He was put in a tenancy with me and the children. And yeah, just went on from there. It was like slowly but slowly, you like got taken away from you. You just have people organising everything about you. I was the head tenant, anything that happened, where any actions he did,
you were responsible?
Well, I didn't know that at the time. They made it sound really beautiful that yeah, this is it, we're going to help you we're going to do this. "You don't have to worry anymore. Here's the house and the children started school. And the father got involved with the community group and the P&C or something. And I asked the P&C not to take too much that the father was saying because he did have mental health problems. And there was a disagreement that started in the community. It was a very small community. And they wrote a few letters. So, all of a sudden, without any notice, I got a letter saying I owe 1000s of dollars in rent because my subsidy had been cancelled. Because I had broken my agreement, because I had a person in the house causing problems in the community. And I had the police and the riot squad surround the house, come and take the father away to Southern Hospital, mental hospital for six weeks.
And Department of Housing moved us into another house where we didn't have a problem for four years. And once there was a problem started up, Department of Housing tried to get my children's father committed again and they moved me into a private rental but they owned the rental. And they moved me from Department of Housing house to there. And then from there just to motels and motels and motels which is
So no stability,
No stability, and even now I'm afraid of stability. I really fear what it's like to live knowing you're safe. And no one can take that away from you.
Housing never considered housing the children's father separately, so that you and the children could have that stability?
No. There was one time we were in a motel. It was 2008. They moved us from a five bedroom house and and put us in motel. And I was very sick at the time because 'dI just had a triple spinal fusion operation. And no one cared about anything. Like I had all my operations and everything. It was all about my children's father and his communications with the services, because he had severe mental health. So they'd just get every, all theiroffice workers together and they'd just argued with him.
Why did they move you into motels instead of Department of Housing property?
I don't know. That's what you have to ask Department of Housing. Cause I never wanted to leave the first housing property. I never wanted to leave that, but they didn't know how to stop the complaints from coming in, even though they were false.
So the way they managed the neighbourhood situation was to move you on?
Yeah, because we're housos. And then when they moved us on, they made sure we wouldn't tell anyone that we were Department of Housing people. And as soon as they found out, we got moved along again,
I had to be in control of everyone in that house. Everyone's actions in that house. I was classified as a problem tenant because of what my ex was doing. They actually marked it down as me being the problem tenant and not him. Because he wasn't a tenant. And even with the moving around from motel to motel accommodation, temporary accommodation. So they warned me that if there was one problem, they will cancel the lease.
I believed and was taught that services were out there. So when I went out there to seek the services and that backfired in a way because it was solely because of the communication breakdowns at the client service level.
So what do you think Housing could have done that would have made a big difference to you and your family's life?
Not blame me for my, the children's father's actions. And show my children how to communicate when they were younger. Not come in and be this authoritarian because that took all power of me as being a mother away in a way. Because, as my children grew older, they didn't see me as a mother figure. In a way they saw me as just a provider. Not even a provider because I wasn't even providing for em, even though I was trying.
If I had that stable accommadation, I could have gone to uni, I wanted to go up when my youngest son. Even though I knew their Dad was not very nice, I still had a plan. And I tried to do that, but you can't do that when you get moved around and you're trying to look after four little children and trying to deal with everything else in life. If I would have had that extra little bit of help when my youngest son went to school, and that house was a private rental. If we were moved into Department of Housing house, a normal Department of Housing house, we could've stayed there and worked with it. And maybe I could have got help with the children's father or something along the way.
Sounds like you were unfairly classified under their system as well, athe problem tenant when really the problems were being generated from your children's father,
Yeah, and the outside community and the way they dealt with it. But it could have been handled, because I think by the way, they moved, that first house I was in, they should have just left me there and let us deal with it properly, instead of everyone just throwing words around to get what they want.
So having a kind of a, an opportunity for you and the neighbourhood to meet and conciliate, work out where the problems were arising from, it might have resolved it there and then you could've stayed on.
Yeah. Instead of things getting worse and worse and worse. But then they say he was doing things like that to them when he was actually being very abusive to me, not to community.
And nobody called out the abuse or the violence and you were experiencing?
No. It's like when the Department of Community Services. They come in, they do a child welfare check. They've got the hardest job in the world. Don't get me wrong. I would not like to be a client service officer. But you go into a family situation and you're taking notes and you're writing notes down. The family you're dealing with is in a crisis traumatic situation at the time they're in and they're facing homelessness. If you've got the fear of having someone write down that you're cancelled, you're out of housing, you're constantly facing homelessness every day. And you know wherever you go, you're gotta just try and be what that person wants you to be, so you don't face that homelessness. You don't put your children in homelessness. That's what my life was like for about 15 years.
That's a lot of stress to be living with.
Yeah. And then about when I was 42, I just went "That's it. I don't want nothing to do with the community or anything and I just walked out of my home, my children and everything.
So you've mentioned Department of Housing coming in and child protection. It sounds to me like there are a number of supports that might have made a big difference to your family.
Yeah. To me child protection should be about going into a family. Not having that fear when you hear that they're coming. Not having that fear that they're going to just decide on your life in an hour, or whatever it is. There's a big fear factor, when you get that text message saying,"Can we come and speak to you about your children or your grandchildren" or something. So sometimes you've got client service officers. They aren't very experienced in mental health or bringing up children. Like, how do you know how to. Bringing up children, it's not about owning a child or giving the right material items. First, you've got to provide a shelter, and you got to provide food and you gotta, but as they're slowly growing, you've gotta guide them and show them how to live.
You've mentioned with your, the father of your children suffering from mental health problems, that he was violent to you. Did anyone ever offer you support as the victim of someone experiencing violence in the home?
I got offered support, but not the support that I needed. It's very hard to explain. When I moved up here, it was more because of the mental health interaction. It was more he had mental health. So he needed help more than me. That, I think that was more my mindset than anything else. And in the past, I had tried to get support and leave him, but that just made the situation a lot worse. So as the children grew older, and with the way, just how the chain reactions of life interacted, I suppose it became possible to leave him.
I was being moved around by Department of Housing anyway. It was all under my name. So if I went to go and seek help. My older. Once your boys turn twelve, they're classed as men, so they can't be moved around with you. So if I were to seek help, to get help from domestic violence services or anything when the boys were younger. (At that time, I don't know, it might be different now. I'm going back a few years.) I couldn't get help. I couldn't leave their father and get help with the boys, because they were too old and they couldn't go into a woman's shelter.
So they would be, if you took the option to go to a women's shelter, the boys would be left on their own with the Father?
Yeah. And then all their housing assistance would be taken away.
So it made it difficult for you to seek help. Yeah. And to change your situation.
Yeah. Because I was getting temporary accommodation with the father of my children. So you just have to live with what you've got in front of you.
And you mentioned that you had spinal surgery. Yeah. And you had to go back to living in a motel to recuperate from that.
Within six months. Yeah, within six months. They may. Well, after the operation, I got a letter from Housing that they were moving us and to pack the stuff up and it took them about six months. They went to move us to a house, but it was another private rental. We went and looked at the house and I couldn't walk up the hill to get to the front door because of my operation. It was that steep where it was. And it was totally medically unsuitable, so we couldn't accept it. So that made me a problem tenant.
So you mentioned child protection, coming to do checks and meet with you at different times? Did they ever offer support or was it more a threat of having the children removed?
No. They never offered any support. And at the time there only support was just interviewing the children at school and seeing if there was anything happening at home.
Did you experience any legal problems that you would connect with being at risk of homelessness or being homeless?
Yeah. And while we were living in motels, a lot of legal problems like, just simple problems with children, like travelling to the trains to get to school because they had to travel long distances on public transport sometimes, because they wanted to stay in the same school. So there'll be fines, or the main legal one was interactions with police. Like, I think both of my oldest children have got their first charge was assault police or something, and it was on the train. The police have a very us and them attitude. As a young mum, I did pull em up on it a few times. I did see the way they were treating some of the children. They provoke the young teenagers into getting a little bit aggressive with them.
There was one day I was at a shopping centre, and I was. I couldn't get up the stairs to go in and get the shopping, so I gave the shopping list to my two oldest boys and gave them money. And I was waiting outside and was just having a cigarette. And I was just talking to a couple of other teenagers, their friends. And the police assumed that I was causing trouble because their friends were known to police. So they asked me to move on. And I told em, I was just waiting for my son to come, my son's to come down with the shopping. And if it's alright, I can move because I was at a bus stop. So, and the next minute I know, I wake up. I'm on the ground. And I look over and there's my two sons and they're in handcuffs. I'm in handcuffs. And I think I got knocked out because I don't remember actually getting taken to the ground. I just was on the ground and we went down to the cells. And we were in the cells for a little bit. And released without charge, because we had a shopping receipt.
I don't like to assume things. But I do think it was because we were judged, because we didn't have that home. And we were being moved around from motel to motel.
So being homeless made you a target.
In a way. What if that didn't happen? So it was this vicious cycle and you just get trapped in and you're trying to deal with so many things at one time, and then you. Who you are you? A number.
So this podcast is part of our Law for Community Worker series. Would you have any tips for community workers that are helping people that might be living in similar situations that you've experienced?
Yeah. At the first meeting, don't make out that things shouldn't be the way they are in that person's life. You need to rebuild a trust and get rid of all the fear and doubt that that person has, before you can properly work with them. Because, people don't trust community workers. If someone comes up to me, and says, "Oh, yeah, I'll fix this all up for you" and all that, I don't believe them. Like at the moment, if I didn't have my younger son, I would be living on the street. At this point in time, I wouldn't be seeking any assistance from anyone.
You've got to be truthful and honest with each other. You when. You're, you're having an appointment with someone's life. That's. Your job is just nine to five. This is someone's life you're dealing with. They might have done things in the past that might not make sense to you. But you've got to try and walk in their shoes to help them. So if you try and go if you go into an appointment with all your social worker words, and all your lawyer words and all those words, they're just words that really don't do anything but give you false hope and false promises. And you need to rebuild that trust back into those words.
So don't make quick judgments and meet people where they are.
Yeah, because like there's been times when I've been a really crazy person, like, if you, you talked to me, I'll yell at you. Because of the situation I'm in at that time. And if, Most of the times me personally, if there's no way out and there's no solution, I can really get in a fearful state. And so I'll be a different person to communicate to you than I am today. And what might seem a problem to me might not seem like a problem to you, but for some reason, it's a problem to me. And you've gotta find that out. With my help. We can only do it together. We can try and work together to find a solution. So yeah. You've gotta take time, Like someone might be screaming at you down the phone, because they're not allowed to go back into their home or something. You've gotta try and work that out with them, if that's your job. And take breaks, and get away from work. So if you can work with the client and find a client that you can truly work with, it takes time.
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions about what the government could do to provide better supports for people experiencing mental health issues?
I would not know how to tell the government what to do with the mental health system or anything. I think, or we've got to help the government more. So I think that's the problem in our society, too. We expect the government to solve all our problems. Where, isn't that what a community is? we work together, to help solve those problems?
I suppose I asked about help with mental health issues, because it seemed that your children's father's mental health issues were a big factor that impacted on you being at risk of homelessness for so many years. And I suppose if, if he had been provided with a greater level of support, that might have allowed you and the children to have a more stable home situation.
See, that's why I got confused by your question because back then I was told the support was there. And to go out and get a letter. Go and see the doctors. You go and see your doctor. You get your letter and then you take your letters to the Department. And then those letters are your voice for mental health. But for some reason those letters weren't looked at properly. And instead of him being a problem, it was put down that I was the problem, on my file. I don't know why someone did that. They weren't supposed to do that. The system was there set up for that. My whole life, like for 20 years was just going around seeing doctors and getting letters for Housing. Not to help me.
You've spoken to me previously about things changing for you that have had a positive impact on your life. Would you like to talk about that?
I think what really had a positive impact in my life is when I joined The Big Issue as a vendor, I was homeless. They actually got me back into university and stuff like that, and got me back into the community. And made me see that the community wasn't a bad place. And I didn't realise myself that I had gone into that 'us and them mentality', which I really didn't want to be. And we've got a lot to learn from our ancestors and the original landowners here, I think.
And that's what sort of got me going again. As soon as I started selling The Big Issue magazine in the mornings at peak hour, and started talking to people on their way to work and just playing music. And I noticed how sad everyone was. So, I stopped feeling sorry for myself as a Big Issue vendor and started seeing me. And that's still a daily process.
So The Big Issue allowed you to reconnect with other people?
It stopped that big long day happening. Yeah. And I stopped havingto communicate with Department of Housing and all those other people and started looking after myself. But unfortunately, because of my children and other things like you still need a house. You can't do that being homeless. You do need a home.
My children never experienced family holidays or stuff like that. Movies would be a once off thing in the year and it's good just to have a place where you can go and just get away from everything. That will be nice if I could do that one day.
And so do you have any suggestions about what the government could do to improve the situation of homelessness?
I think, to me, I would love someone to try and explain to me how the house prices have gotten so high over the last 20 years. Like, like when you go to court and if you go and steal, shoplift or something, you get told by the judge "The community doesn't agreewith this. You're not doing the community any favours." Well I don't think the house pricing rising is doing the community any favours. It is doing individual people favours or individual businesses favours. And if we truly want to go with the way our, the indigenous people lived well, no one owned the land back then.
Sometimes they need to be like a parent, I suppose, as a government. Put your foot down and say, "No. enough. We're not going to have a company that lives off plan prices and rentals and all that, because you have such high rentals, your middle class workforce can't work. I think the government does need to have some regulation in how the houses are bought and sold and in the rental market.
My youngest son, he works full time. Two jobs. And he lives with three other adults. Young adults. And they're just working from week to week. They can put money away. They, their place they're renting is $1,000 a week.
Oh my goodness. That's horrendous!
Is it's like. Back in 2007, Department, we were renting a house, $550 a five bedroom house. I don't understand that. I really don't understand how that's gone from 2007. I know it's the interest rates. I know all that. I know everything like that. But yeah, that's not. You're gonna always have homelessness.
And you've mentioned that you go and speak in different places for The Big Issue. Will you tell us a bit about that?
That really. Yeah, that, that was one of the times that really did turn my, like my life around. I never forget when I got asked "Would I like to become a guest speaker?" Why would anyone want to know my life? I don't even want to know my life. Why would anyone want to hear my life? And I did a talk with a group of year elevens. And the first part is just all the basic averages, . figures and what homelessness is all about. Marginalisation. It goes through a little bit of that, and it can get a little bit. It's just all those numbers and averages and all that stuff. And I'm just sitting there. And then it was my turn to talk and I had to speak about my life and my experience of homelessness for 10 minutes. And I was so nervous. I was like really nervous.
And I just started talking, briefing about a little bit of how when I was a teenager you had to make, when you went home to make a phone call. And that just got like, the faces of all the children were so shocked. They didn't understand that. That was weird. Like,
I remember that.
Yeah. And how phone calls were private. Yeah. Like it still gets to be now. When people. Yeah, I find it hard how quick we've changed from phone calls, being private conversations to now phone calls being so public. And, by the time I was finished, the questions. And then I just thought the questions of these children would ask was so thought provoking. "I've known all types of homelessness, ask me everything." And their responses and just the caring attitude. But what I do find is the attitudes of the children I speak to, they actually didn't know that life's out there, in a way because all they're shown is what's on the media, or what's in the local news. They don't see the unique side, or the one person's side of what that one person needs to go through.
And each talk it just, it drains you. It's really hard, but I like it because I get to turn all that hate I've experienced in my life around into something creative. Because I grew up believing, I was taught that if you were in jail, if you were homeless, you choose to be there. And that's not true. Some people don't have the right foundations and life's a chain reaction. And if you don't have the right network and the right support there behind you. You can get caught in a chain reaction. It's just like everything else. It takes time. It's a chain reaction of events that have to sort of be broken, to stop it from happening again.
I get to talk. It's not someone talking for me, like I'm telling my story. I'm not having someone translate my story for me. You know, for whatever they want. I'm just telling you a story. And then what we get from it is amazing. I've spoken to refugees and so many other people over the years, I get paid to talk. But no one will listen to me in my personal life.
That's all for this episode. I thank Rachel for sharing her experiences and for her thoughtful tips for those of us working with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. I also thank the Homeless Persons Legal Service for putting me in touch with the people I interviewed. You can have a look at the Show Notes for some useful links to services. Thank you for listening. Our next episode should be out soon.
