Some Reflections on thethe SAAPSAAP andand Homelessness in PARITYAustralia Slums and Land

All Our Days

Defining and Defying thethe ImageImage ofof CampCamp Pell

The Origins and Development of the Australian Women’s Refuge Movement

Why I Work withwith thethe Elderly Homeless

The Freedom to Sleep: A History from thethe LongLong GrassGrass inin Darwin, Northern Territory

The Bigger Picture: Australian Homelessness Legal Advocacy

South Australian Housing Policy:Policy: Retrospective/Prosp ective.

From ‘Vagrant’ to ‘Nuisance’:‘Nuisance’: 200200 YearsYears of Public Space Law InIn QueenslandQueensland

Whatever Happened toto thethe Revolution?Revolution? ……

Activism and the Early Days of Youth Refuges inin NSW

History of Response toto HomelessnessHomelessness

The NSW Women’s Refuge Movement

Talking like a Toora Woman: the herstory of a single women’s serviceservice

Another Country: NOVEMBER 2006 Another Country: PrintPrint PostPost approvedapproved PP328866/0060PP328866/0060 ISSNISSN 1032-61701032-6170 ABNABN 20 005005 475475 007007 HistoriesHistories ofof HomelessnessHomelessness VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 10 AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Council to Homeless Persons Chief Executive Officer: Deb Tsorbaris Policy Officer: David Wright-Howie Homelessness Advocacy Service: Co-ordinator: Annie Paliwal Contents Advocates: Michala Wright and Angela Kyriakopoulos Parity Editor: Noel Murray Editorial 3 Youth Policy Officer: Anna Forsyth Administration Officer: Joy Pagalos Some Reflections on the SAAP Address: 34 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, and Homelessness in Australia 4 Melbourne 3065 Phone: (03) 9419 8699 By Doug Limbrick, Fax: (03) 9419 7445 Director Performance, Reporting and Data, Housing and Disability Group, E-mail: [email protected] FaCSIA.

Promotion of Conferences, Slums and Land 6 Events and Publications By Heather Holst* Organisations are invited to have their promotional fliers included in the monthly All Our Days 8 mailout of Parity. By Tony Birch* Rates: $85.00 National distribution, $65.00 Statewide distribution only. Defining and Defying the Image of Camp Pell 9 Write for Parity! By Nell Musgrove * Contributions to Parity are welcome. Each issue of Parity has a central focus or theme. However, The Origins and Development of the Australian prospective contributors should not feel restricted Women’s Refuge Movement 11 by this as Parity seeks to discuss the whole range of issues connected with homelessness and By Suellen Murray, RMIT University the provision of housing and services to homeless people. If possible, the length of contributions Why I Work with the Elderly Homeless 12 should be no greater than 1000 words. Please By Bryan Lipmann, AM, CEO, Wintringham 2 consult the Parity editor if this is insufficient. Where necessary, contributions will be edited. The Freedom to Sleep: A History from the Long Where possible this will be done in Grass in Darwin, Northern Territory 14 consultation with the contributor. By Bill Day*Photos by Bill Day Parity Web Site www.chp.org.au/parity/ The Bigger Picture: Contributions can be sent by e-mail to Australian Homelessness Legal Advocacy 17 [email protected] or sent on disk in a By Cassandra Goldie* # Microsoft Word or rtf format to: Council to Homeless Persons, South Australian Housing Policy: 34 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, Melbourne 3065 If neither of these two options is possible, Retrospective/Prospective. 19 contributions can be faxed on (03) 9419 7445 By David Kilner* or mailed to the above address. Website design and maintenance proudly From ‘Vagrant’ to ‘Nuisance’: donated by Infoxchange Australia 200 Years of Public Space Law In Queensland 22 2007 Draft By Dr Tamara Walsh, Publications Schedule Lecturer in Law, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland. February: As Much Right: Homeless Young People and their Future Whatever Happened to the Revolution? … Activism March: Health and Homelessness: and the Early Days of Youth Refuges in NSW 23 A Framework for the Future By Michael Coffey, Executive Officer April: Primary Homelessness Youth Accommodation Association of NSW (YAA) May: The Future of Women’s Housing June: Homeless Families: History of Response to Homelessness 26 New Responses to Homeless Families By Elena Rosenman, AFHO Policy Officer July: Enough is Enough: Rooming and Boarding Houses The NSW Women’s Refuge Movement 28 August: Homelessness Research By Catherine Gander, September: Mental Health Executive Officer NSW Women’s Refuge Resource Centre and Homelessness October: Responding to Homelessness Talking like a Toora Woman: in New Zealand November: Homelessness and the herstory of a single women’s service 30 Welfare Reform Elena Rosenman Expressions of interest in both contributing and sponsoring are welcome. Opinion 32 Note: The views and opinions expressed Heather Holst* in this edition are not necessarily shared by either CHP or sponsoring bodies.

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness Subscription Form/Order Form 32 Editorial

his is the last edition of Parity for 2006 perspectives arising from the contact with Tand so it is worthwhile reflecting on the November 2006 Conference) elderly achievements of this year and looking ahead homeless April: Primary homelessness to 2007. Next year will be Parity’s 20th men in night (including itinerancy, sleeping anniversary. This shows the continuing shelters rough and squatting) relevance of such a publication. The motivated him to dedicate his working life longevity of Parity says as much about the May: The Future of Women’s to improving the circumstances of elderly ongoing interest in homelessness, as it does Housing people experiencing homelessness while about the very fact that homelessness Tony Birch reminds us that the personal is June: Rooming Houses Revisited remains ever present, demonstrating an political. Other articles reflect on the history overall failure to address the structural July: Homeless Families: New of the SAAP program, developments in the causes of homelessness. Responses to Homeless Families women’s refuge movement, the provision of legal assistance for people who Parity is a national publication for discussion August: Homelessness research experience homelessness and charting the and understanding of the causes and (papers, perspectives arising significant involvement of those providing appropriate responses to homelessness. from Research seminar) assistance in advocating for change and Its success is evidenced by increasing September: Mental Health the development of the youth homelessness subscriptions. More than 800 organisations (current and emerging policy sector. I am confident you will find this edition and individuals now receive Parity. issue especially in light of COAG a useful resource. As a subscriber, in 2006 you would have plan on mental health) These articles demonstrate an improved received editions that spanned a diverse October: Homelessness in New understanding and appreciation of the issues and interesting range of issues: Zealand faced by people who are homeless and “Out in the Open: Public Space” reflects a gradual shift in Government policy. November: Homelessness and However, in most recent research

Edition 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 Welfare Reform undertaken by Hanover Welfare Services Waking up to Homelessness: Many thanks to all involved with the Melbourne the cold hard facts remain that 3 National Conference Edition production of Parity. This includes the most members of the community do not contributors, subscribers, sponsors, artists, appreciate the nature and extent of EDITORIAL Guardianship and photographers, supporters and critics who homelessness and further to this, perceive Administration, Disability and together make Parity a very unique vulnerable people who experience Homelessness publication and resource for the sector. homelessness as at fault or to blame for Special thanks go to Joy Pagalos, the their circumstances. Perhaps we have not Working it Out: Employment, Council to Homeless Persons committed traveled that far at all. Unemployment and administration worker responsible for the Thank you for being a subscriber to Parity, Homelessness Parity mail out as well as organising forums. we look forward to continuing to bring you a high quality publication in 2007 that will Now to this month’s edition — a glimpse at On the Outer: Homelessness in assist and guide your individual and the history of homelessness in Australia. Outer Metropolitan Areas organisations efforts to eliminate Whilst all the articles are sensational, most homelessness. Vulnerable, At Risk, In Danger: poignant are the personal reflections on Supporting People with Complex homelessness. For example, Bryan Lipmann Deb Tsorbaris, Needs CEO of Wintringham writes on how his first CEO Council to Homeless Persons

The Future of Homeless Support

New Responses to Drugs, Alcohol and Homelessness

Men in the Middle: Homeless Men in the 21st Century

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness

Over the last 2 to 3 years significant sponsorship has created the opportunity for bumper editions of Parity. This has provided a vehicle for a more comprehensive analysis of issues as well as contributing funding for the accompanying events. The Future Some of the themes for 2007 include: February: Youth Homelessness “As Much Right: Homeless Young People and their Future” March: Health and Homelessness (papers, AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Some Reflections on the SAAP and Homelessness in Australia

By Doug Limbrick, Director A study of homeless men by Jordan1 in the Definitions Performance, Reporting and period 1963-1967 found the average age The early discussions about definitions Data, Housing and Disability to be around 42. frequently focussed on the perceived cause, Group, FaCSIA. which was largely viewed as being associated The early 1970’s saw the collapse of full with the problems of the individual. This was employment and unemployment rose rapidly, influenced by the understanding and often Introduction which had a particular impact on large untested social realities of homelessness. An he 1st of January this year marked an numbers of young people. Young people implication was that homelessness was in important event in the history of the started to appear in the population using T an absolute sense about the absence of development of service provision to night shelters. The deinstitutionalisation of physical shelter, which of course did not take homeless people in this country — SAAP people with a disability also occurred in the account of the full implications of turned 21. The advent of SAAP in 1985 was mid 70’s. Despite the sound policy objectives homelessness. The desire for a more very important at that time for the future of this process it none the less has had an comprehensive definition of homelessness provision of support and services in the area incredible impact on the nature of the started to emerge in the literature in the mid of homelessness. SAAP created a more homeless population in this country. 1970’s. For example this issue was discussed comprehensive national response to The first Federal government homelessness in the Poverty Inquiry report. homelessness and involved for the first time legislation, the Homeless Persons A 1978 report by the Department of Social the Commonwealth and each State and Assistance Act, was passed by the national Security4 listed three ways of defining Territory entering into a partnership to Parliament in 1974. This Act introduced the homelessness: address homelessness. In entering into this Homeless Persons Assistance Program; agreement both levels of government the first national program aimed at 1. a lack of shelter; recognised that homelessness was a meeting the needs of homeless people. This 4 2. disaffiliation from the institutions of problem that required a national response. program provided capital funding to non- conventional society, including the The significance of this step to the shaping government agencies for the provision of family, or of homelessness service delivery in this shelter and funding for some operational country was substantial. It raised the profile costs, such as a subsidy for the number of 3. affiliation with a natural group called of homelessness as a significant social issue, meals provided each day. A number of large “homeless people”. provided a structure for both levels of dormitory style hostels were built under this This definition is interesting as it suggests government to work together and secured Program. They provided a bed, meals, a that there is in existence a homeless sub- increased funding for improved service shower and clean clothing. It was thus culture. This is interesting as the report also responses. very much an institutional response to comments that the homeless population is homelessness, as opposed to the far from homogenous and includes people History individualised responses that were to follow. Homelessness is clearly not a nineteenth from different backgrounds, situations and 2 century phenomenon in this country. In 1975 the Henderson Poverty Report was prospects. released. It recognised that homelessness There was evidence of homelessness from In the 1980’s discussion about definitions was associated with poverty. However, the the early days of colonisation amongst the started to examine other factors such as analysis of homelessness in that report was new arrivals and clearly the Indigenous marginalisation, structural causes, the largely confined to an association of the people were progressively moved from their impact of inadequate income and cause with a lack of affordable home lands as colonisation expanded. differences between chronic and temporary accommodation. Organised service provision commenced homelessness. As the needs of homeless as early as about 1830 when Caroline Awareness of the structural causes of people became clearer the definitions Chisholm started to provide assistance to homelessness accelerated during the became more comprehensive, recognising single women in crisis. She was instrumental recession of the 1980’s and this was that support of a various kinds would be in establishing an accommodation facility accompanied by recognition of new required to meet these needs. to protect this group from some of the more emerging types of homelessness among It wasn’t until 1994 that SAAP legislation5 distasteful aspects of colonial life. By the women, young people and families. middle of the century Sydney Mission provided a definition that captured the commenced provision of hostel type By 1985 when SAAP started there were complexities of homelessness: ‘a person is assistance to single homeless men. some interesting changes happening which homeless, if and only if, he or she has During this period the causes of saw recognition of homelessness as an inadequate access to safe and secure homelessness were associated with the issue of national significance, closely related housing’. Inadequate access to safe and to the broader question of housing secure housing is described in the legislation plight of the individual. affordability rather than being perceived as in terms of housing that may damage the By the 1970’s our understanding of a relatively minor issue affecting a small person’s health, threaten the person’s safety, homelessness was still fairly unsophisticated substratum of marginalised people. The marginalises the person because of and was largely associated with International Year of Shelter for the Homeless inadequate amenities of social supports that transience and habitual drunkenness and in 1987 also increased attention to the sometimes criminality (prior to that the problem. However, the solution in the early analysis was even simpler being an almost years of SAAP was largely seen as the romantic notion of men who were down on provision of affordable housing. It wasn’t their luck or down and out). These until the Burdekin Report3 in 1989 that the perceptions led to an understanding of complex nature of homelessness started to homelessness that was largely about failures be unpacked, as the Burdekin Inquiry associated with the individual and these explored the lives and revealed the stories

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness individuals were predominantly single men. of homeless young people. a home normally affords or places the person The strategic directions of SAAP V reflect The Future in circumstances that could affect safety, both the changing nature of the SAAP SAAP has grown in 21 years from a relatively security and affordability. population and the findings of research and small Commonwealth State program of $28 evaluation conducted during SAAP IV. More recent work, such as Robinson’s6 million in 1985 to a $324 million program discussion of people with a mental disorder, Evidence Base in 2005-06. During that period there has which explores a temporal perspective, is been considerable change, growth and introducing a further method of viewing Developments development. SAAP has moved from a homelessness. In an article that I wrote for the August edition relatively unsophisticated program and set of Parity I examined the development in of service responses to a program that now An interesting perspective on what definitions of homelessness and the needs assists daily over 20,000 people with a very constitutes no longer being homeless was of homeless people. In the article I presented broad range of creative and innovative put by Barry Warren a former homeless data from the SAAP National Data Collection services. person at a recent conference: “You don’t about the support needs of SAAP clients feel homeless when you can say you are There has also been an enormous growth and the services they received, together going home and you feel good about it”.7 in other services for homeless people, with data from the High and Complex Needs This highlights the importance of “home” particularly those associated with various Study, data from the Client Satisfaction study in the current definitions. homelessness strategies that have emerged about what clients thought were their in the past 5 years. SAAP Agreements problems and needs and information about the nature of the diversity of service delivery The very significant progress that has been and Legislation models funded under SAAP. All of these made in SAAP and through the various There have been three pieces of SAAP sources of information pointed to a very strategies has in large part taken place legislation: 1985, 1989 and 1995. The first diverse client population with multiple and because of the increased understanding two Supported Accommodation Assistance often complex needs. about homelessness derived from the large Acts set objectives that largely reflected the With each successive SAAP agreement we amount of knowledge and evidence that is prevailing view of homelessness at the time have increased our understanding of the now available. The knowledge about good they were drafted. The emphasis was very population using SAAP services, through practice has been used by many service much on resolving crisis by providing data activities, research projects, pilot providers to enhance service provision. appropriate accommodation. The third studies, special surveys, case studies, etc Many people have been prepared to Act was significantly different and moved and during SAAP IV we also had some 30 respond to changing needs, to share

SAAP into a social justice paradigm. This 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 small projects which enabled SAAP information, to question practices, to try is most clearly reflected in the wording of agencies to undertake their own research new approaches and to encourage and the Preamble to the ACT. An early paragraph projects. There are now also many other foster change. Two important and difficult 5 in the Preamble states: challenges for the future are to improve our

research studies on homelessness and Histories of Homelessness Another Country: Homeless people form one of the the homeless population and the third capacity and approaches to prevent most powerless and marginalised national count of homeless people has homelessness and to be able to achieve groups in society. Responses to recently been undertaken in conjunction permanent solutions for individuals so that their needs should aim to empower with the 2006 Census. There is thus a very they only experience homelessness once. them and to maximise their considerable body of knowledge about SAAP V is building on this very substantial independence. These responses homelessness and particularly about the base of good work. A challenge for SAAP should be provided in a way that homeless people using SAAP. Further is to utilise more effectively the results of respects their dignity, enhances their studies are underway or planned for SAAP good practice that is taking place around self-esteem, is sensitive to their V. For example, the following work has been the country and the substantial evidence social and economic circumstances, endorsed for SAAP V: base derived from research and data and respects their cultural • Improvements to the SAAP data activities. If services, programs and backgrounds and their beliefs. collection, including development of activities are to continue to expand and be The preamble concluded: an Indigenous package to assist funded then we need to be able to tell the participation by Indigenous stories and demonstrate clearly the The Parliament intends that the agencies where English is a second outcomes that are being achieved for Commonwealth Government should language; homeless people. ■ work co-operatively with State and Territory governments to ensure that • Data linkage work which will enable Footnotes people who are homeless or risk of us to look at the movement of 1. Jordan, A., 1994, Going Bad: Homeless people in a non identifying way men in an Australian City, Council to homelessness are given opportunities Homeless Persons Victoria, Melbourne, to redress their circumstances and between programs (e.g. the flow of p.88. their universal human rights are not people from mental health services 2. Commission of Inquiry into Poverty, 1975, prejudiced by the manner in which to SAAP, young people with a care Poverty in Australia, First Main Report (Prof. services are provided to them. background entering SAAP); R.F.Henderson, Chairman), AGPS, Canberra. This legislation is still in place and • A project on measurement of 3. Report of the National Inquiry into underpinned the SAAP IV and the new SAAP improved client self reliance (which is Homeless Children, Human Rights and V agreements between the Commonwealth one of the outcomes for SAAP set Equal opportunity Commission, 1989, Our and the States and Territories. In SAAP V out in the legislation); Homeless Children, (Brian Burdekin, Chairman), AGPS, Canberra. there are two levels of agreements: a • Further work on client outcome 4. Department of Social Security, 1978, A Multilateral Agreement and Bilateral measurement in collaborating with Place of Dignity: A Survey of Homeless Agreements between the Commonwealth agencies already using previously People and Homeless Persons Assistance and each State and Territory. Centres, AGPS, Canberra. developed outcome measurement tools); 5. Supported Accommodation Assistance Act, 1994, part 4. • A study of housing outcomes for 6. Robinson, C, 2003, Understanding Iterative people who leave homelessness; Homelessness: the Case of People with Mental Disorders, Sydney, AHURI. • A repeat of the high and complex 7. Warren, Barry, 2006, Homeless Citizens needs study; and Take Centre Stage, Homelessness SA Conference Homelessness and SAAP • A further project on client Reform, 16-17 November, Alan Scott Park satisfaction. Function Centre, Adelaide. AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Slums and Land

By Heather Holst* poor. Slum dwellers’ characters were neighbourhoods slum areas and to described based on earnings, drinking compulsorily acquire for demolition and ustralian public interest in habits, criminality, parentage and whether building of new public housing.10 The war Ahomelessness has been very low in they were ‘dissolute’. The surveyor assessed interrupted this work but also ensured recent years, yet there was a period when whether each man was ‘derelict’ or a national reform as the imperative to house universal housing topped the policy agenda. ‘unionist’ and each woman ‘slovenly’ or returned servicemen motivated large-scale ‘loved and cared for her children’. Barnett public housing construction. Barnett Concern about poor housing dates back explained that the slums were hidden in declined a 1943 invitation to chair the to the 1870s and a 1916-17 Royal ‘pockets’ off some of the city’s most Commonwealth Housing Commission.11 Commission considered the matter. Many prosperous thoroughfares. This rhetoric, This Commission drew on Barnett’s concept of the British anti-slum movement themes borrowed from America and Britain, made of the ‘housing question’ but with less of contagious disease and contagious the sudden discovery of the slums believable emphasis on slums and it seriously immorality were taken up by early Melbourne as well as alarmingly close. contemplated land nationalisation.12 campaigners.1 However, it was the slum abolition campaign in 1930s Melbourne Barnett took photographs which Barnett and the Slum Study Group’s which galvanised public opinion to such complimented his statistics and anecdotes. campaign was a triumph in terms of an extent that every wise politician included One of the most extraordinary shows two producing public housing of a decent working class housing in their policy women on their front step holding their standard but exacted a cost on people in platform. The Melbourne campaign was babies with Barnett’s caption asserting that whose name it was waged. A certain rhetoric conducted by a number of individuals and one of the children would soon die from its produces a certain result. Casting slum organisations meeting as the Slum Study mother’s drunken neglect. The photographs dwellers as objects of horrified pity, as ‘other’ Group, but the most prominent campaigner were used in lantern slide shows than the mainstream ‘us’ provoked a public was Frederick Oswald Barnett. accompanied by affecting narrations of slum response which expected many rules for life. Barnett and others Slum Study Group Barnett was born in 1883 in the working- tenants. It offers a warning about enlisting members were appealed to each class Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, the a certain type of public opinion based on audience — mounting a ‘virile attack’ for son of a Cornish quarryman. The Barnett the idea that homeless people are somehow the politically minded of the Constitutional 6 family had a hard 1890s Depression but different (and not as good). Club and highlighting the children for the Barnett continued his education with his Women Citizens Club. The same Rights to Land older sister’s support, went on to pass the photographs were used in the press public service exam, became an accountant Victoria had taken quite a while to get to campaign to which Sir Keith Murdoch, The with his own business, moved to the eastern this point of concern about housing that Herald proprietor, leant vital support. Articles suburbs and completed a Master of began to rumble in Melbourne in the appeared regularly in all the major papers Commerce. Barnett was an active Methodist 1870s but did not peak until the 1930s. Up from 1932, culminating in 1936 with The lay preacher, voluntary treasurer for church until these slum abolition campaigns, the Herald’s month-long series ‘Why Melbourne organisations2 and, as a young man, matter of where people lived was Needs Better Housing’.7 member of the Knighthood of Christ — the understood in terms of land rather than ‘pick of the Methodist Church’ by his later Barnett persuaded Premier Dunstan, housing. Once you had a piece of land, you description.3 The Knighthood were accompanied by eighteen carloads of could construct a house as your means interested in the ‘child rescue’ of poor politicians, to tour the slums in 1935 and allowed and people might start with bark children for adoption into middle class recalled that they made such a splendid and canvas then progress to more solid homes. This ‘child rescue’ work of the 1910s procession that people thought them a construction when they had more time and ‘20s led Barnett into housing reform, funeral and took off their hats. They were and money. Government policy since but children remained a central housing indeed a harbinger of the passing of several squatters first laid claim to great tracts of theme and poor children continued to be Melbourne neighbourhoods. Barnett was land had all been geared towards dividing sent to the Methodist Babies Home. soon invited to a Cabinet meeting after which up the colony’s land — and obtaining it freely Interestingly, child removal and the Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition from the Aboriginal owners who were homelessness remain tragically linked. Board was established.8 systematically made homeless. The 1933 Census found 33,000 people Barnett was Deputy Chair of this Board Grazing licences and freehold purchase travelling in the hope of work and 400,000 which gave much more attention to actual rights proceeded as the legal basis for living in shelters made of ‘iron, calico, housing conditions, although slum dwellers’ landholding until the great upheavals of canvas, bark, hessian and other scavenged characters were still studied.9 The Board the 1850s gold rushes. The Ballarat Eureka materials’ but this was not the agenda of externally inspected every house within a rebellion of 1854 is rightly celebrated as the Barnett and other reformers.4 They were five mile radius of the GPO and in other battle which won white men the vote in interested in the inner city where people ‘slum pockets’, decided which were Victoria and fairer terms under which to were at least housed, if poorly, but were ‘slum’ and sought entry to inspect the interior mine, but it has been little remarked for its suspected of living immorally. Barnett would and question the occupants. Their report other great victory of winning the mining later describe his shock at discovering the found 2,833 ‘slum and sub-standard population the right to housing. ‘true nature of the slums’ when lecturing houses’ and ranked suburbs by the The Miners Right was introduced in 1855 boys at a Little Lonsdale Street mission one incidence of unsound floors, skillion roofs and gave the holder a quarter acre parcel day on the inadvisability of tobacco and so on. It also categorised areas as ‘Slum of ‘the waste lands of the Crown’ for, ‘. . . smoking.5 He ‘… reeled, absolutely reeled’ Pocket’, ‘Congested Area’, ‘Blighted Area’, the purpose of residence in connection with when the Mission Sister described the boys’ ‘Decadent Area’ (with three sub-categories), the object of mining . . . and every holder living conditions. ‘Mixed Area’ and ‘Shanty Settlement’. The shall during the continuance of such Miner’s report was further enlivened by naming Barnett’s ideas were laid out in his 1931 Right be deemed in law to be the owner.’.13 hundreds of slum landlords, several of whom Master of Commerce thesis, which was That is, the holder of a mining licence also sat in parliament. published in 1933.6 He analysed the national acquired land for a house and garden. This economic impact of slums and reported a Legislation was enacted to establish the licence could be readily renewed annually survey administered by the Melbourne Housing Commission, allow inspection for with the landholder having the right to first

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness Ladies’ Benevolent Society on the Fitzroy repairs or demolition, declare whole purchase. After the Eureka rebellion, the cost of a mining licence was reduced to be effective public campaign by the people 8. Renate Howe, New Houses for Old, 21-26 affordable for almost everyone. This system directly in need of that outcome. It came and Russell, The Slum Abolition Movement, 27-28. only applied in goldfields areas but these with very few conditions apart from annually 9. Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition formed a large part of the settled districts paying for a mining licence (it was not even Board 1936-37. First (Progress) Report with of Victoria in the nineteenth and early necessary to actually work at mining). By Appendices and Supplements: Slum twentieth centuries. Similar legislation was contrast, the other housing solutions of Reclamation: Housing for the Lower-paid enacted in the goldfields of the other Soldier Settlement, Village Settlement, the Worker. Short Term Programme. Melbourne: 6th October 1937. colonies. Selection Acts and particularly of public 10. These acts of the Victorian Parliament were: housing all came with more onerous strings Miners Right holders were entitled to collect Housing Act 1937, no.4531 (to establish the attached. ■ wood and stone from Crown Land for Housing Commission); Slum Reclamation and Housing Act 1938, no.4568; Slum building purposes. After 1865 a Residence * Heather Holst is a PhD candidate at the Reclamation and Housing (Financial) Act Area could be transferred to another holder University of Melbourne. 1938, no.4583; Slum Reclamation and of a Miners Right and any ‘improvements’ Housing Act 1939, no. 4562. Footnotes (house, garden, sheds, fencing) could be 11. 1. Anthony S. Wohl, The Eternal Slum, sold. The buyer had simply to take out a Housing and Social Policy in Victorian 12. Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction, Miners Right and nominate the land on which Britain (London: Edward Arnold, 1977). Commonwealth Housing Commission their purchased ‘improvements’ sat as their (Canberra: Australian Government 2. Interview with E.W. Russell in The Slum Publishing Service, 1944). Residence Area. Both men and women Abolition Movement in Victoria 1933-37, 29 and in “I Remember”, the autobiographical 13. Parliament of Victoria, VR No. XXXVII, ‘An could hold a Miner’s Right, as long as a Act to amend the Laws relating to the woman could establish her status as femme piece in F.O Barnett “Papers”, Boxes 1666/7, State Library of Victoria. A tribute Goldfields’, 12th June, 1855, section III. sole. These were very advantageous prepared by Rev. H. Palmer on the The same right was extended to holders of terms and made an enormous occasion of Barnett’s retirement as business licences in designated goldfields areas. contribution to ordinary people making a treasurer of Wesley Central Mission notes home on the goldfields. This system would that he was eighty-two years old at the time 14. Ralph Birrell, Staking a Claim. Gold and the of this retirement in an unnamed paper Development of Victorian Mining Law continue for over a hundred years into the clipping in the “F. O. Barnett Box,” Uniting (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1960s when the Residence Areas were Church In Australia, Victoria Synod 1998). converted by the Victorian government into Archives. 15. Legislative Council of Victoria. “First freehold title.14 3. The Front Line (November 1917): 17-20 in Progress Report of the Royal Commission the “F. Oswald Barnett Papers,” MS Boxes on the Housing Conditions of the People in The system always had its critics on the 1666/7, State Library of Victoria. The quote the Metropolis and Populous Centres of the basis that it was all a bit ‘free and easy’ is from the Russell interview in 1967. Brian State (Sanitation and Housing Conditions at 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 and it was especially deplored by those Howe mentions his own memories of Seaside Resorts, Extending from Black Barnett still meeting with a group of Church Rock to Frankston) Together with an who wanted residential property completely contemporaries, the Good Companions, as Appendix”, VPP, vol.1481, 1915. Also in 7 in the market. In the agricultural lands of a much older man in the 1950s. Brian David Harris’s chapter in Renate Howe, ed., nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: Victoria and many other parts of Howe, Housing for the Twenty-first Century: New Houses for Old. Fifty Years of Public Australia, the Selection Acts would play Building on Barnett (Melbourne: Ecumenical Housing in Victoria 1938-1988 (Melbourne: Housing, 1997), 5. Ministry of Housing and Construction, the role of the Miners Right in offering 4. John Archer, Building a Nation: A History of 1988)., 1-19. ordinary people the opportunity of the Australian House (Sydney: Collins, 16. Yolande Collins, ‘Chinese communal holding land. This too was law made in 1987), 174-75. arrangements in Bendigo and health officer response to the widespread demand to 5. Also in Barnett, The Unsuspected Slums, surveillance, 1870s-1905’ in Paul ‘throw open the lands’. There are other 5-6. Macgregor, ed., Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific. examples of opening up land as a 6. F. O. Barnett, “The Economics of the Slum” Proceedings of an International Public solution to pressing social problems, most (Master of Commerce Thesis: University of Conference Held at the Museum of Chinese notably the Soldier Settlement programs Melbourne, 1931). Australian History, Melbourne, 8-10 after the two world wars and the Village 7. The Herald, 21.5.1936 to 24.6.1936. October 1993 (1995)., 394-408. Settlement schemes of the 1890s depression that established many small towns around Victoria. The sort of rhetoric that would emerge from the Royal Commission into the Housing of the People in the Metropolis that was held between 1913 and 1917 in Victoria would challenge this popular housing strategy, at least in Melbourne. The report deplored the disorganised and unsanitary nature of housing that had been erected on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay and on river and creek fronts, much of it makeshift and all taking advantage of free Crown Land.15 In a similar vein, the Bendigo Council acted against dwellings of elderly Chinese men living on Miners Rights in Ironbark, intensively inspecting and demolishing some of their houses on the basis that they were unsanitary, yet with no plan for rehousing.16 The underlying contests were over whether or not residential property should be unequivocally a market commodity and whether or not people could live in the conditions of their own choosing, even if the experts found these conditions unsanitary, unprofitable or immoral. I think the Miners Right Residence Areas can be understood as the result of an AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, All Our Days

By Tony Birch* sits with at their local shopping centre. They Politically I have always believed in the need smoke cigarette after cigarette and talk of and value of the welfare state; in that as a y father’s second wife died in 2005 their love for sport and a strong dislike for society we should be responsible for the Mafter battling a debilitating illness for particular politicians. For some of these men economic and social welfare of each other, many years. He has also suffered an illness their housing situation remains tenuous. The and that we should be prepared to pay for for more than thirty years left him Salvation Army’s Brunswick Citadel, again, this security net, with the acceptance and homeless until he was eventually provided as in my father’s case, supports many of understanding of its mutual net value. I grew with secure public housing accommodation. these men. They enjoy a meal there, and up also believing that people should not The sense of emotional and economic they socialise there. While some of these have to rely on charity handouts to survive, security it continues to provide him also men remain marginalised by the particularly from religiously based charities. contributes to his general wellbeing. ‘mainstream’ community they, with the help My beliefs seem almost anachronistic in the Unfortunately, the resources provided for of the Salvation Army, have built a individualised post welfare state. public housing are not enough and many community amongst themselves. people remain unassisted. After leaving my father at the Citadel I was On the day of my stepmother’s funeral I less assured about my own ideological In the decades that my father has been sick walked into a small chapel in North Fitzroy, stance, which was both naïve and ill- his contact with both his immediate and relieved to see that it was full of people. informed, in that it lacked the experience extended family has been occasional (at Some of the mourners were from the of my father and his friends. Whether anyone best). There are some members of his family hospice where my stepmother had been should need to rely on charity is a moot point — absolute — when governments and the wider community — we — abrogate our own social and economic responsibilities. More importantly than this obvious point I also realised while sitting down with my cup of tea and watched as my father’s friends 8 spoke with him that it was not charity that was being offered, and that it was not a handout that brought my father and the other men to this small building in a side street in Brunswick each day. It was due to the friendship on offer, and the sense of belonging that had cost nothing in material terms, but gave so much of spiritual value. In recent week’s Melbourne’s news media have given coverage to the plight of the city’s homeless as a result of a fire in a Brunswick accommodation unit in which two people died. We have been exposed to the exploitation of people who for whatever reason find themselves in a vulnerable situation, and at the prey of others. Some of these people are older men like my father and his friends. Some are young teenagers. Many are families. They with whom he has had little or no contact lovingly cared for in the months before she live in my suburb. And they live in your for some years now. I believe that when died. Many of the others in the chapel suburb. families become estranged or even shatter were my father’s crew from Brunswick. we perhaps need a ‘no fault’ clause in place While reading these articles I was reminded I watched from a pew at the back of the if we are to have any chance to rebuild of a writer I heard being interviewed on the chapel as men approached my father and relationships. Some years ago I adopted radio one morning while I was in my kitchen. offered their condolences. Some of them this approach with regard to my relationship The writer’s father had spent many years shook his hand. Others hugged him, while with my father, with some success, and living on the street. He asked listeners to one or two awkwardly kept their hands eventually a sense of mutual acceptance contemplate a situation, whereby when buried in pants pockets. Two officers from between us. we got up of a morning we had no idea the Brunswick Citadel led the service. There where we might be sleeping that night, In the days between my stepmother’s death was a lot of singing of hymns and many and that much of our day would be spent and her funeral I was worried that there tears. Afterwards I could see that my having to negotiate a bed for ourselves, and would be few people at the service. She father was content. This was made possible possibly our loved ones. If this were not had been confined to a hospice for some because of the care shown him by his difficult enough he reminded us that those time, and her own family, not unlike my community. who are homeless would have to go through father’s, were both emotionally and After the service we went back to the this same process tomorrow, and the next geographically dispersed. If death is any Brunswick Citadel for a cup of tea, a biscuit day, and the next . . . reflection on our lives, a farewell from and a chat. I was introduced to many of those who love and care about us is an Members of our community should not be my father’s friends. They were not without indicator of both who we are and those we forced to spend their days this way. ■ their troubles, but they had taken time away have touched. from their own difficulties to help my father * Tony Birch is a Melbourne writer. He I knew that the friends my father has get through his. I left the Citadel realising teaches in the English Department at

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness comprise largely of a group of men that he that I had been in a remarkable place. Melbourne University Defining and Defying the Image of Camp Pell

By Nell Musgrove * pneumonia and severe diarrhoea were Australian imagination was centring its sense constantly threatening the lives of those being of identity around the ‘suburban dream ocated in Melbourne’s inner-suburban raised in the crowded and poverty-stricken home’, an icon of middle class respectability LRoyal Park, Camp Pell had become a conditions. The easy assumption of the that symbolised a moral commitment to an notorious city landmark well before it began general population was that these children’s ‘Australian way of life’. Perceived compliance its life as an emergency housing camp in ailments must be, at least partially, the with the ideals and values of this ‘way of the postwar decade. It was originally created consequence of parental neglect. At the very life’ had far more to do with a family’s visible to cater for the thousands of American least there was deep suspicion about the efforts towards presenting the home they troops that flooded into Melbourne in 1942. circumstances which had forced families to had in an acceptable way than with their The concentration of so many foreign troops raise children in Camp Pell in the first place. actual financial ability to procure the in one place was enough to raise anxieties suburban brick home and 1/4 acre block.4 about the possible negative social impact Older children roamed with relative autonomy of the camp, and such fears appeared around the camp in their leisure time; indeed The conditions of camp life made it difficult confirmed when it was revealed that Camp there was little other choice barring confining to maintain a home that, according to Pell had been home to the man convicted children to the already overcrowded huts. popular expectations, demonstrated that of the sexualised murders of three women These groups of children took on the sufficient care and attention had been paid known as the ‘brownout stranglings’.1 status of ‘gangs’ or ‘packs’ in the public to it. The fact that residents were Following the end of the war in the Pacific, imagination and were thus seen as constant encouraged to view their stay at Camp Pell American troops evacuated the camp and potential threats. Groups of boys were as transitory only exacerbated this situation. the Victorian Housing Commission took considered to be violent, criminal and ‘looking Understandably, many families were over its control, using the huts as emergency for trouble’, and groups of girls were seen reluctant to spend time and money on a housing for families in crisis. For the next as sexually provocative, precocious and home from which they might be moved in ten years Camp Pell’s infamous reputation promiscuous. These projections were not only a short time. As has so often been the expanded, a reputation which impacted unlike those applied to all ‘wayward’ case for people living in poverty, the families upon both the people who lived there and youths at the time, but the visibility of groups of Camp Pell were under public scrutiny 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 the welfare workers who sought to house of these children around Camp Pell was without serious consideration being given and assist them.2 taken as evidence of the suspect moral fibre to their particular difficulties. Consequently 9 of the families who lived there. they were often found wanting. Life in Camp Pell Histories of Homelessness Another Country: Similarly, in the formation of popular Contrasting Perceptions 1945-1955 assumptions, little pause was taken in order Living conditions in Camp Pell were difficult. to consider the multiplicity of circumstances of Camp Pell Many children were caught up in the waves influencing the condition of residents’ Given the situations that led families to take of contagious diseases (including rheumatic huts. Even as Melbournians found up residence in Camp Pell, it comes as little and scarlet fevers) that swept through the themselves in the grip of a housing crisis surprise to find that many had dealings with camp, and illnesses such as impetigo, that lasted well into the 1950s, (3) the one or more of the city’s welfare agencies. AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, that the homeless define their needs and their desires on their own terms and that these may not fit with the plans for aid that are put in place for them. There is no doubt that Camp Pell saw more than its share of poverty and deprivation during the years it was used as an emergency housing camp, but rather than this suffering merely being a past phenomenon for people to lament, perhaps it can be used as a tool for improving the ways Australians understand and respond to families facing homelessness in the 21st century. * Nell Musgrove is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, working in the field of welfare history. Footnotes 1. Helen Pace, “‘All the Nice Girls ...’ a Case Study in the Social Control of Women, Melbourne, 1942,” Hecate 18, no. 1 (1992): 49. 2. The information about Camp Pell given here is taken from research conducted by the author and primarily draws on a selection of client case files from the Citizen’s Welfare Service, Children’s Protection Society and Children’s Welfare Department archival collections. In order to protect the privacy of individuals whose files are cited directly, case files have been identified using an alternative numbering system, the key to which is held by the author. 3. Warwick Eather, “We Only Build Houses: 10 Although poverty was the driving factor accommodation seemed likely to present The Commission 1945-60,” in New Houses for Old: Fifty Years of Public Housing in which meant that so many Camp Pell itself.8 Another woman, a victim of spousal Victoria, 1938-1988., ed. Renate Howe families became clients of various welfare abuse, had the possibility of securing a hut (Melbourne: Ministry of Housing and agencies, there was a range of situations for herself and her daughters, but the Construction, 1988), p.69. which led to relationships with caseworkers caseworker advised her to reconcile with 4. For further development of this argument being forged. Broadly, these can be her husband in the interest of keeping her see Nell Musgrove, “‘Filthy’ Homes and considered under three categories: issues daughters away from Camp Pell.9 ‘Fast’ Women: Welfare Agencies’ Moral Surveillance in Post-Second World War around the custody of children;5 the need The camp was seen as a less perilous place Melbourne,” Journal of Australian Studies, for material support;6 finally, and most for boys, as long as they had track records no. 80 (Jan 2004). germane to this article, housing assistance. of good behaviour. Where boys had histories 5. Families in these cases started at a disadvantage simply by living in Camp Pell. In making recommendations about the of truancy or petty theft, parents were Assessments depended not only upon a suitability of families for placement at Camp encouraged to place them in care rather parent’s ability and desire to provide for a Pell, caseworkers frequently revealed that than increase the ‘risk’ by accepting child’s basic needs, but also on their ability despite their training and experience, they accommodation at Camp Pell. to provide an environment which would foster the healthy moral development of the shared many of the popular assumptions These opinions were not always shared by child. For more on this see Nell Musgrove, about life at Camp Pell.7 It must be said that the families seeking help, to whom the camp, “Making Better Families: Surveillance, these stereotypes were not based entirely Evaluation and Control of Families in if not a desirable location, was clearly their on fiction. There were in reality some situations Melbourne, 1945-1965” (MA, University of best option at a particular time. Having Melbourne, 2003), Dorothy Scott and within the camp that almost anyone would assessed their current living conditions, Shurlee Swain, Confronting Cruelty: have found confronting — in some extreme such families argued that a hut, wherever Historical Perspectives on Child Protection cases other residents themselves reported in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne it was, would have to be an improvement. families to welfare authorities — but University Press, 2002). More interesting are the cases where families caseworkers were quick to expect Camp 6. Although most of the families who made sought placement at Camp Pell against the Pell families to fit the stereotypes and guarded applications to the three agencies advice of their caseworkers. Here the key considered here received some kind of in making sympathetic or generous issue was its location close to the social assistance, it was generally an uphill battle assessments of them. to secure the kinds of support they sought networks and employment opportunities and some charitable funds were reluctant to Caseworkers saw Camp Pell as a last resort, upon which such families relied. Many provide financial or material support to even amongst the emergency housing families refused huts at the Watsonia housing residents of Camp Pell at all. options. In particular, it was the moral camp (roughly 20km north-east of the city 7. Although Camp Pell was under the control of environment that caseworkers saw as centre) and even houses in the same area, the Victorian Housing Commission, the rendering Camp Pell as undesirable, and instead pressuring their caseworkers to find assessments of caseworkers from other agencies (most notably the Citizens’ children were considered particularly them a place at Camp Pell. Others refused Welfare Service) could be used in making vulnerable to the negative influences of casework altogether, appearing at intervals evaluations of applicants. camp life. to enquire about the possibility of now 8. Case file #576. obtaining residence at Camp Pell. Caseworkers shared the popular perception 9. Case file #420. Cases of domestic violence need to be understood in an historical that Camp Pell was a place where girls and Camp Pell provides an archetypal example perspective. Caseworkers certainly didn’t women were vulnerable to sexual advances of the negative assumptions that are often work on a ‘zero tolerance’ policy as far as and where promiscuity was encouraged. In made about families experiencing a housing spousal abuse was concerned, but neither the case of one family facing eviction the crisis and reminds welfare workers to did they uniformly encourage reconciliation. Where a woman was assessed as facing mother was advised ‘not on any account carefully interrogate the assumptions that desperate circumstances as a sole-parent, to take her attractive girls to Camp they themselves make about their clients. she was often advised to attempt a reunion

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness Pell’ despite the fact that no other This study should also serve as a reminder with her husband. The Origins and Development of the Australian Women’s Refuge Movement

By Suellen Murray, women are over-represented in the female client found that while the implementation of service RMIT University group that access domestic violence SAAP responses to domestic and family violence had services; in 2003-04 almost a quarter of all women been ‘impressive’, there remained outstanding he Australian women’s refuge movement1 is accessing domestic violence SAAP services were issues including the need for an increased range Tpart of an international movement that, from Indigenous Australians (Australian Institute of of services and better accessibility and the 1970s, has provided services to women and Health and Welfare, 2005b, p. 2). responsiveness of services, at least partly related children and brought domestic violence2 to the to funding and resource issues. A major issue for Some accounts of the earliest established refuges attention of government and the wider community, domestic and family violence services is that have been written and provide a window into the ultimately leading to significant changes in social demand for services continues to outstrip the histories of responses to domestic violence and policy and service delivery. In 2006, the Australian available resources. In particular, Weeks & Oberin homelessness in Australia (e.g, Johnson, 1981; women’s refuge movement remains centrally (2004) expressed concern about the practice of Murray, 2002; Women’s Liberation Half-Way involved in these developments. There are, women and children being accommodated House Collective, 1977). As well, there has been however, significant issues still to be resolved. unsupported in motels when there are no beds some documentation of the histories of the available in refuges and Kirkwood (2006) identified While in Australia services existed from the wider refuge movement (e.g., Orr, 1994; McGregor the need for better resourcing of both immediate nineteenth century from which women sought & Hopkins, 1991). Various government-funded crisis support and longer term support. accommodation at times of crisis, such as the reviews have also considered the work of refuges rescue homes of the Salvation Army, the first (e.g., McFerren, 1987; Chesterman, 1988) and Other barriers to effective service delivery include organisations that institutionalised domestic there has been analysis of the relationship between the lack of culturally relevant models and difficulties violence as a reason for women and children domestic violence services and the state including in accessing affordable long-term housing. leaving their homes were established just over that by McFerren (1990), Melville (1998) and Weeks Additional resources for rural and remote areas, 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 thirty years ago. These events in Australia followed & Gilmore (1996). especially for Indigenous women and children, similar developments that emerged from Women’s further services for children and the expansion of 11 While many of the earliest refuges established Liberation movements in the United Kingdom, specialist cultural programs, and services for from the 1970s were set up by groups of feminists, Histories of Homelessness Another Country: Canada and the United States in the early 1970s young women and women with disabilities have others were established by church-based (Pizzey 1974; Walker 1990). The first Australian all been identified as matters that require attention organisations or groups of community minded refuge, ‘Elsie’ was established in Sydney in 1974 (Jennings, 2003; New South Wales Women’s citizens, not necessarily feminist in their orientation. by a group of feminists. The service was initially Refuge Resource Centre et al, 2001; Weeks & Hence, while feminism has influenced domestic unfunded, staffed by volunteers and located in Oberin, 2004). The changes to family law and violence policy and service delivery, not all an unoccupied house that the group took over the implications for women and children who have members of the women’s refuge movement have as a squat to provide refuge for women and experienced domestic and family violence is shared feminist beliefs, particularly in the early children escaping domestic violence (Lyons, another issue of concern. Nyland & Saunders, 1994; Summers, 1999). years of the movement. The ability of these diverse However, Elsie, and the other refuges that were groups to cooperate and form strategic coalitions While much has been achieved in the past three set up in its wake, not only provided crisis to successfully influence public policy is a decades, as noted by Weeks & Oberin (2004, p. accommodation and other support to women, significant achievement of the women’s refuge 125), ‘challenging and preventing violence and they also worked to produce social change around movement. Since the 1980s, in most states and women and children must remain a primary goal domestic violence in a range of ways including territories and nationally, peak bodies, despite of governments and communities’. The women’s changing community understandings and limited funding to support their activities, have refuge movement continues to work to achieve improving the wider service system responses. worked with their member organisations this goal and to remind others of its importance. advocating to government (e.g., Women’s Council References are available in full on the The development of the women’s refuge for Domestic and Family Violence Services (WA), Parity web site. movement was informed by a gendered analysis 2006). Domestic and family violence services also of domestic violence, both recognising that women have key roles in the integration of the delivery of Footnotes (and children) are the majority of victims of services across the domestic violence service 1. Typically, in Australia, the ‘women’s refuge movement’ domestic and family violence and that it occurs system (Department for Community Development, is now talked about in terms of domestic and family violence services (rather than ‘refuges’, or ‘shelters’ within the wider context of social disadvantage 2006; Statewide Steering Committee to Reduce and inequality experienced by women relative to as they are known in some Australian states) reflecting Family Violence, 2005). the much greater diversity in service models and men which, for some women, means that their programs now than in the earlier days of the movement. vulnerability is heightened. Despite the increasingly The current domestic and family violence services For ease of discussion, at times I refer to the ‘women’s conservative political environment, the include crisis and transitional accommodation refuge movement’ in acknowledgement of its history gendered analysis remains a key plank from which services, as well as outreach, support, and, at other times, ‘domestic and family violence advocacy and specialist children’s services. While services’, to better reflect the current state of the domestic and family violence services frame their sector. work (Murray, 2005; Webster, 2006). there are common service delivery issues faced 2. Historically the Australian women’s refuge movement by agencies across Australia, there is also Within a year of Elsie being set up, twelve domestic referred to violence between intimate partners as considerable diversity among the states and domestic violence and this specific form of violence violence services had been established in Australia. territories and between urban and rural locations was its primary concern. In more recent times, there At this time in Australia hundreds of women and in relation to service models, staffing and have been changes in the use of terminology. While children were turned away from the few existing many in the sector continue to use the term ‘domestic programs. For example, among refuge services, refuges. While there is still unmet need, in 2005, violence’, in some states and territories, ‘domestic there are now communal homes as well as cluster- across Australia there were 291 agencies providing and family violence’(or ‘family violence’) have been style units and dispersed housing. Other models adopted to acknowledge that violence may be crisis accommodation and related support include shop-fronts, lone outreach workers and perpetrated by intimate partners as well as other family services for women and children escaping and community members, in particular, in relation to specialist children’s counselling services (Weeks domestic violence through the Supported Indigenous women. In this article I use ‘domestic & Oberin, 2004). Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) at and family violence’ and ‘domestic violence’ interchangeably. See MacDonald (1998) for further an annual cost of $85.4 million (Australian Institute In a survey of domestic and family violence services discussion of language used around domestic and of Health and Welfare, 2005a, p. 7). Indigenous across Australia, Weeks & Oberin (2004, p. 3) family violence. AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Why I Work with the Elderly Homeless

By Bryan Lipmann, Over the following months I began to notice through this time to pen an alternative view. AM, CEO, Wintringham more and more of these quiet and almost From someone who was nominally feral elderly men, and occasionally women, managing one of the service redevelopment never cease to be amazed at the role who were living at Gordon House. As I began teams, my memories of the period are ones Ichance plays in determining people’s lives. to become aware of the extent and range of working in a fog, with a drip feed of of excellent aged care services in the information trickling down from the service Although I made the decision to work with community, I became increasingly puzzled CEO and CSV managers. Projects we homeless people, I had never contemplated and then angry: why weren’t homeless worked on were scuttled or promoted that that I would work primarily with the people accessing these services? Another according to agendas that when they elderly. Indeed for my first few months as side of the story was harder to explain and weren’t constantly changing, were certainly a social worker, I worked with street kids in understand: why were the homeless clouded in a veil of mystery and machination. Fitzroy Street St Kilda. services themselves content (or was it merely We lurched from moments of excitement The chance event that awakened my resigned to the fact?) that the elderly and exhilaration as we opened up new interest, and then passion, to attempt to try homeless were living in their shelters? projects. We felt that we were all working to change the conditions that the elderly More than 20 years later I still don’t know towards a common end, namely the closure homeless were living in, was an incident the answer — or if I do, it is more of a of the terrible shelters and their replacement affecting my father. realisation that there is no one single answer, with modern services that would at last bring It was 1986 and I was working at Gordon but rather that something like an answer can some form of justice to the homeless. House. My wife and I had decided to take be found in an unfortunate amalgam of aged Similarly we fell prey to moments of deep my Mum and Dad to see Circus Oz. As I care industry prejudice, appalling despair as we realised that our moments was leaving work on the Friday night, the hypocrisy on the part of church based of exhilaration were accidental and often nurse at Gordon House called out to say aged care services, the paternalistic views misinterpreted as being something other that two men had just suffered heart attacks. of homeless service providers and the than a simple grab by the homeless agencies He asked if I would help him get them to overworked and stressed homeless service to secure more services and power and to Prince Henry’s Hospital. I rang my wife and workers who were forced to concentrate on prevent any form of mainstreaming of the 12 asked her to pick up my parents and take crises to the exclusion of preventative care. rights of homeless people. them to Circus Oz and that I would meet Over the next year or two I started to become If we despaired at the speed with which the them there later. aware of how many appalling stories of large homeless agencies were being injustice and outrage had led these elderly Meanwhile we took the two men to Prince dragged kicking and screaming into the people to seek shelter in a homeless Henry’s. If there is anything good that has 20th century, we were only partly mollified persons’ service. An incoherent elderly man happened in the last 20 years, then the by the knowledge that in other states there had been discharged from hospital to closure of Prince Henry’s is certainly one of was no attempt at even pretending that they Gordon House (he had never previously them. After much arguing and discussion would be reforming their services. been there) with both arms in plaster with the hospital, they eventually admitted casts. None of the staff had ever heard of Eventually however, improvements were both men. I then went off to Circus Oz, him and none of us were alerted by the made. The Salvation Army started to employ where unbelievably, my father himself had hospital to his arrival. It was only by accident more non-Salvationists to manage their a heart attack. We managed to get him out that we discovered him in a room the services and ending up closing down The of the tent and into a taxi and then to St booking clerk had allocated to him — I’ll Gill and building Flagstaff. St Vincent’s de Vincent’s Hospital. They admitted Dad and leave it to your imagination to imagine Paul partially redeveloped Ozanam and they shortly afterwards when they realised he what his casts looked like after he had wiped too professionalised its services. Hanover had health insurance, they transferred him himself when he went to the toilet over the closed Gordon House and opened Haig to the private section of the hospital. There previous four days. We had men who had Street amongst other services. These he stayed for about 10 days where they fought in wars only to end their days in the were major achievements as any visit to did every test known to modern medicine, shelters. We had women who had been Sydney will continue to demonstrate. treated him wonderfully well and abandoned by their families and men who eventually discharged him. Dad lived for To return to the plight of the elderly had been told they were drunks when in homeless; while the Redevelopment did another 9 years before dying of an illness fact they were suffering from Parkinson’s unrelated to his heart problem. not directly impact on the establishment Disease. The list was endless. And all the of Wintringham, it did however create an When I got back to work on the following while, aged care services refused our environment where it was possible to Monday morning, both of the two men we referrals, Geriatric Assessment Teams contemplate the possibility that there had taken to Prince Henry’s were found wouldn’t come to Gordon House, and the could be a better way of doing things. What dead in their rooms at Gordon House. Both homeless services themselves were we didn’t realise, which in hindsight can had been discharged by Prince Henry’s reluctant to see the elderly homeless living only be excused through naivety, was how anywhere other than in their services. immediately after we had admitted them to hard some in the homeless sector would hospital — in fact I later learned that one In spite of my growing passion for the rights fight to prevent a new competitor entering of the men was back at Gordon House of these forgotten elderly, I am under no the field. before I had even got to Circus Oz! It was illusion that without the establishment of Yet in spite of this obstruction, which was clear that at least one of the men had died the SAAP Nightshelter Redevelopment, the eventually to lead to the realisation that we a horrific death, as he had partly fallen from opportunity to devote 100% of my time to would only progress services for the elderly his bed and in a confusion of tangled sheets, the elderly homeless would not have arisen. homeless by creating a new company with faeces and urine, had struggled to his death. The Redevelopment was a strange time to its own staff, directors and leadership, The lesson was clear: anyone who thinks live through. The Department of Human support was found and in the most that in Australia you can get equal access Services (or Community Services Victoria surprising places. Nowhere was this support to health care (or as I was later to learn, as it was then known) has written their history stronger than from the Brotherhood of St aged care services) is simply living in cloud of the Redevelopment. However, at some Laurence through its CEO Peter cuckoo land. It just doesn’t happen: wealth stage it would be interesting for someone Hollingworth and his senior managers,

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness buys access to services. from the sector who lived and worked and in particular through John Wise. Chance had again intervened, for without and not homeless and elderly. This paradigm such as forcing a homeless person to attend the support of Peter and the massive shift focuses us and the Department on the a church service before they are fed. credibility and respect that he rights of elderly homeless people to access Services to homeless elderly men and commanded in the 1980’s in Melbourne, mainstream aged care funding. For a similar women have improved — at least in and the enthusiastic support of the then reason, Wintringham has never asked or Melbourne. Although it is still difficult to have Federal Aged Care Minister, Peter Staples, accepted a dollar of SAAP funding. referrals accepted by mainstream aged care Wintringham would have struggled to be I continue to work with elderly homeless services, it is somewhat easier than it was anything other than an idea that had come men and women because I still consider it in the 1980’s. Homeless service providers at the wrong time and place. to be an absolute disgrace that a rich and themselves are now far more likely to refer While we have had people who have affluent society can turn its back on its aged elderly clients directly to Wintringham or periodically provided great support and and impoverished when they are at their other providers working with the aged encouragement, the Commonwealth most vulnerable. I still get upset and angry homeless, and less likely to try to retain Department of Ageing (in all its various name when I see commercial interests, whether these elderly folk. From a service delivery changes) have been unfaltering in their they be ruthless boarding house landlords perspective, it is clear that moving away support. A huge array of bureaucrats over or avaricious Boards of Directors running from a total reliance on SAAP into the far the 20 years have shown consistent and at some church based concessionally taxed better resourced Aged Care industry has times, quite remarkable flexibility in helping aged care services, being allowed to overturn been prudent. Nevertheless, the problem adjust a system that was designed for the rights of the elderly poor. I get equally of chronic underfunding, particularly with mainstream elderly people to meet the needs upset and angry when we hear of services regard to capital resourcing, continues to of the homeless. We have argued all along that are delivered to elderly homeless people prevent the expansion of desperately that our clients are elderly and homeless in a degrading and paternalistic manner, needed services. ■ PARITY · Volume 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 13 nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, The Freedom to Sleep:A History from the Long Grass in Darwin,Northern Territory

By Bill Day* century the Protector of Aborigines had ‘long grassers’. At the same time, the few Photos by Bill Day advocated the creation of Aboriginal reserves predominantly alcoholic non-Aboriginal ‘long to slow the migration to Territory urban grassers’ had been superseded in the public n 2006 a conflict over the colonisation of centres, in conjunction with laws restricting imagination by the ‘hippies’ who made their IAboriginal land is being played out in public Aboriginal movement in towns. By 1911, camps on jungle fringed beaches view in the streets and parks of the City of many of the local Larrakia people, hinterland overlooking Darwin’s scenic harbour. By Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. groups and their children were confined to then, the term ‘long grasser’ to describe a Refusing to be marginalised, the ‘long grass’ Darwin’s notorious Kahlin Compound. homeless person seemed destined to fade people are making a stand in the face of a from memory as a relic of Darwin’s shanty The policy of discouraging Aboriginal booming property market that has town origins. movement into towns was subverted by the threatened their camps and made their land resultant shortage of cheap domestic labour. As Darwin grew to a modern city, facilities a commodity. An earlier Aboriginal resistance Following increased opportunities and and home ownership increased to the extent began in 1869 after an armed expeditionary expectations after the Second World War, that residents who previously identified with force surveyed the town site to satisfy southern states began to view Darwin as speculators who had paid for unseen estates a welfare officer described a population of their home. Many seemed to ignore the fact and were growing impatient for their title 400 ‘homogeneous people from all tribes’ deeds. Although few of the surveyed living in the Darwin camps. In the camps properties were ever occupied by the he observed the adaptation of Aboriginal purchasers, native title judgments have ruled traditions to the urban landscape, where that the sales effectively dispossessed the localities had become the domain of distinct Aboriginal landowners. language groups. Despite the need for labour, in 1957 the officer recounted an early 14 The struggle for an Aboriginal presence on morning ‘muster’ of the camps to remove the ground in this northern enclave of settled the ‘down and outs’ to a waiting ship where Australia is disguised in the media as an their names were recorded ‘so that the ‘itinerant problem’, providing a regular Director of Native Affairs could commit them election beat-up ‘to rid the streets of long to an Aboriginal reserve.’ grass people,’ as homeless Aborigines are often now called. Election campaigns In 1951 a southern newspaper carried a against ‘antisocial behaviour’ and long series of reports on strikes by Aboriginal grassers play upon on voters’ racial anxieties workers in Darwin. The articles described and have therefore been described as ‘dog Darwin’s Aborigines as ‘hewers and whistle campaigns,’ although the terms are drawers,’ and noted that employers ‘would deliberately racially non-specific. A recent resent any suggestion that all town natives exception to the dehumanised and should be sent to bush settlements away anonymous ‘itinerant’ was an interview in from the doubtful benefits of white the media with the Aboriginal actor, David civilisation.’ A local commented: ‘I can Gulpilil at his camp hidden on the slopes imagine the shriek that would go up from behind the Darwin Magistrates Court. senior public servants and business men if that became policy.’ In camps a few miles ‘Long grass’ is a regional term, taken from from Darwin the reporter interviewed ‘natives the spear grass that grows more than two living in conditions of such squalor, filth and metres tall on vacant land around Darwin in abasement as defy open description.’ the monsoon months from October to April. The long grass then dries and is flattened Until the 1970s, similar urban Aboriginal by late storms and is usually incinerated in camps were tolerated as part of the dry-season burn-offs. Cleared patches in Darwin scene. In the subsequent economic the grass could be used for hidden or boom, the Darwin suburbs began to spread illegal drinking sessions or as places to sleep rapidly, coinciding with an increasing for people threatened by race or vagrancy assertiveness by the Darwin homeless, laws. Since drinking rights were granted to encouraged by the national movement for NT Aboriginal people, drunkenness land rights and the liberation movements decriminalised and vagrancy laws abolished, of the times. In 1971 several Darwin fringe the ‘long grassers’ have moved into the camps formed a coalition that they called parks, beaches, scrub thickets and ‘Gwalwa Daraniki’, or ‘our land’, and began neglected buildings around the town. These demanding ownership of their scattered sites are preferred to the spear grass illegal urban bushland campsites. The where breezes are stifled, insects thrive and militancy of the homeless in their dramatic sometimes lives are lost in grass fires. protests illustrated that authorities could not assume that the Darwin camps could Aboriginal camps around Darwin are not a be bulldozed for new housing estates. new phenomena. As the anthropologist, W. E. Stanner wrote: ‘For every Aborigine who Coincidentally, it was not until the ubiquitous had Europeans thrust upon them, at least ‘native camps’ asserted some rights to their Homeless Aboriginal people at their one other had sought them out.’ From the land that homeless Aboriginal people camp at a secret location on the earliest times, many Aboriginal people had became increasingly known in the media outskirts of Darwin, April 2006

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness chosen to migrate to the growing town. Last as ‘itinerants’, ‘transients’ or more recently, that Aboriginal people had been living in the between people along a ‘beat’. The well- Various questionnaires confirm that area for countless generations before them. meaning report discusses Aboriginal Aboriginal campers in Darwin value their Only after a few urban Aboriginal itinerancy as a natural condition, a cultural closeness to the soil on which most of them communities gained recognition as continuity of people who were ‘itinerant in by necessity sleep, as confirmation of their designated ‘town camps,’ did the Darwin this country prior to British colonisation.’ Aboriginality. Their lifestyle demonstrates media begin to refer to the remaining There have been many occasions when that they belong to the land. As one man anonymous and voiceless campers as camps have been dismantled by the told me, ‘My mother put me on the ‘transients’ or ‘itinerants’. The terms deftly authorities, further giving the camps an air ground. My mattress was paperbark — not avoid any association with dispossession of impermanence. bed like Whiteman’. However, being or the specific needs of homeless Aboriginal harassed from place to place ‘like dingo, The founder of the Longgrass Association, people and satisfy a supposed desire not like wallaby,’ as they claim, suggests to a Larrakia woman, saw things differently in to appear racist. By 1996, it was no Aborigines that they are not regarded as an ABC television documentary in 2004. coincidence that the Darwin City Council human. Survivors who walked hundreds of She said: ‘Well, for a start, they really need harassment of ‘itinerants’ began with the kilometres into Darwin in the 1950s to join to look very closely at human rights issues. launch of the ‘Clean Up Australia’ campaign. the town workforce resent being told by The right for our people to move about the politicians who may be relative A House of Representatives Standing country. At the moment, they’re treating newcomers that they do not belong in Committee on Aboriginal Affairs inquiry into people like cattle, dumb animals that are Darwin. Others explain why they prefer fringe dwelling Aboriginal communities had just wandering around aimlessly and don’t camping. One elderly man said: ‘We like to categorised homeless Aborigines in towns know what they’re doing. And they’re live in the bushes, we don’t like to live in as ‘permanents’, ‘transients’ and ‘homeless moving them on. We must, as a national the town. Like, when we get a house, all drifters’. By 1992, another Parliamentary voice, take up the initial thing, which is, as the young boys and young girls, they report used anthropological descriptions of Indigenous people to this country, we have break everything. I was get three times house Aboriginal mobility patterns to stress a a right to live the way we want to live. And in Palmerston, and the Housing Commission ‘complex and purposeful itinerancy’ that if we choose not to live in a box. Well, then, kick me out — me and my wife. And I said, fulfils obligations and maintains links that’s our choice.’ ‘No more’. PARITY · Volume 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 15 nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19,

16

In the past, many Aboriginal town camps have resulted in the production of a Committed long grasser, Len Stewart included representatives of the traditional ‘Longgrass CD’ compiled by homeless peers out from his long grass camp owners, the Larrakia people. Following the people in conjunction with well-known remarkable revival amongst a new musicians. Obviously, from these examples near Darwin April 2006 generation of Larrakia, the tribe has been their is acceptance amongst the An edition of Longgrass assigned to manage the NT and homeless who have claimed ‘long grass’ Commonwealth Government-sponsored with some pride as their own. Although they ‘Community Harmony Project’ that have stood strong in the face of repeated professes concerns about the health and election promises to ‘clean up Darwin,’ like well-being of ‘itinerants and the anti-social homeless people everywhere the stoicism behaviour of some members of this group.’ and humour of the ‘long grass people’ belies Point 8 of a list of ‘Cultural Protocols’ states: the tragedy of their shortened lives while ‘Visitors are responsible for their behaviour the ever-spreading city deprives them of and should respect guidance of Larrakia,’ their camps. ■ While Point 9 states: ‘Inappropriate behaviour reflects badly on Larrakia people *Dr Bill Day is the author of Bunji: a story and we do not accept it.’ Although there is of the Gwalwa Daraniki Movement. recognition of accommodation needs, Aboriginal Studies Press 1994, describing Larrakia programs avoid the term the campaign by a coalition of homeless ‘homeless’, preferring the term ‘itinerant’ Aborigines for space in the City of Darwin popularised by the media. from 1971 to 1985. His PhD thesis is titled: Apart from the Longgrass Association, Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin: Cultural Darwin has seen at least two longgrass persistence or a culture of resistance? magazines, several longgrass video University of Western Australia, 2001. He documentaries and there is a longgrass web has been working for Aboriginal site. Two successful ‘Freedom to Sleep’ organisations in Tom Price, WA, for the last

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness overnight protests outside Parliament House five years. The Bigger Picture: Australian Homelessness Legal Advocacy

By Cassandra Goldie* # Children,4 and there have been important from the English study was that ‘the location legal and social campaigns in support of of services at the point of contact with istorically, in Australia, there has been people facing homelessness, such as the homeless or at risk groups was the most Ha tendency for legal functionaries to Rent Watchers campaign leading up to the effective way of providing legal services to see the ‘problem’ of ‘homelessness’ as an 2000 Olympics in Sydney,5 and the the homeless.’10 area where the law has little to offer. campaign against loitering offences in Port In response to the findings of the English Homelessness has more typically been Kembla.6 However, most early debates were study, in October 2001, the first Homeless perceived as a ‘non-legal’ welfare problem, absent a human rights analysis and Persons Legal Clinic was established by linked to lack of employment, abuse of reports and campaigns tended to be PILCH in Melbourne, Victoria in partnership alcohol, mental health issues, and other localised endeavours without the capacity with the Council to Homeless Persons, the individual circumstances rather than the to continue a broader campaign of peak advocacy group for homelessness result of a lack of protection of basic human community and legal activism seeking to services and people who are homeless in rights and a legal regime that fails to protect define and secure legal protection of the Victoria.11 The Clinic commenced as a 52 those rights. This attitude is likely due to a basic human rights of people facing week project, involving delivery of legal range of features of the legal profession and homelessness. services through two Clinics, based at legal frameworks in Australia: a general lack welfare agencies, with legal assistance of understanding about international and The Development of provided by private law firms on a pro comparative human rights law; restrictions Specialist Legal Services bono basis. The Clinic was explicitly ‘based on the statutory legal aid system, as on similar schemes in the United States demonstrated by my own personal legal aid for People who Are which have proved of considerable worth 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 experience; the lack of a bill of rights in Homeless to homeless people in dealing with the civil Australia; and a legal profession that largely legal issues which may impact on their ability 17 reflects the broader community attitudes In 1999, Caitlin English the then Executive to access accommodation, employment or towards people who homeless. Director of the Public Interest Law Histories of Homelessness Another Country: Clearinghouse (PILCH) in Melbourne, social security payments.’12 The Clinic made Even in human rights areas of legal practice Victoria, travelled to the United States as an important commitment to training legal and advocacy, homelessness has often part of a Churchill Fellowship to study the practitioners and welfare agency staff to been seen as an issue confined to economic, delivery of pro bono legal services in public increase the success of the integration social and cultural rights discourse, in interest cases for people who are poor and between the work of agencies and the particular the ‘right to adequate housing’ marginalised. PILCH was established in relevance of the law to supporting people contained in Article 11 of the International 1995 as a clearinghouse for pro bono who are homeless. Covenant on Economic Social and services, basing itself on innovative models 1 The Clinic has grown into a well-established Cultural Rights. Economic, social and 7 in the US. The English study concluded and highly respected legal service provider cultural human rights, including the right to that ‘the United States was considerably as well as a strong and effective advocate adequate housing, have not been further advanced in the provision of pro for the legal and human rights of people comprehensively incorporated into the bono services than we were in Australia’ who are homeless. The Clinic provides legal domestic legal system of Australia.2 and noted ‘the leadership role of the services at seven welfare agencies13 through Accordingly, in Australia, homelessness has American Bar Association in developing Bar weekly clinics staffed by pro bono lawyers been too easily dismissed as a problem not 8 pro bono schemes throughout the country.’ from eight law firms.14 In addition, the amenable to legal intervention at the Clinic has been active in policy and law domestic level. As part of her tour through the US, English visited a number of specialist pro bono reform work, with significant impact. The Community and welfare groups have also schemes for people experiencing homeless, success of the Homeless Persons Legal seen the legal system as a tool of oppression including Volunteer Lawyers for the Clinic in Melbourne, Victoria has now been of people who are homeless, rather than as Homeless established by the Legal the catalyst for similar initiatives in another 3 a tool for change. Accordingly, links Assistance Fund with 70 private attorneys four of the seven jurisdictions in Australia. between legal functionaries and community attending homeless shelters and one LAF On 10 December 2002, the Queensland activists had not been developed and staff attorney to supervise, and the Public Public Interest Law Clearing House (QPILCH) consolidated. Until recently, there had been Counsel — Homelessness Prevention Law launched the Brisbane-based Homeless relatively limited debate in Australia amongst Project, which provided outreach services Persons’ Legal Clinic as a six-month pilot legal functionaries or community activists to people using homelessness services, project based on the Melbourne model.15 about the legal and human rights of people drawing on summer clerks from the Public The Coordinator and Solicitor for the Clinic facing homelessness, and how people might Interest Project at UCLA. English was originally a part-time seconded employed pursue those rights to assert greater control subsequently also highlighted the work of solicitor from private law firms.16 In September and legitimacy, inside and out of the the National Law Centre on Homelessness 2005, QPILCH was successful in receiving domestic courts and at international level. and Poverty, the ‘Adopt a Shelter’ a one year grant from the Queensland There have also been scarce efforts by legal program in Hollywood and Santa Monica, Department of Communities in order to aid services to provide specialist legal the Homeless Youth Project in Los Angeles, expand its services and employ a full-time assistance and advocacy for people and the Lawyers Clearinghouse on solicitor. The Clinic provides pro bono legal experiencing homelessness. Affordable Housing and Homelessness in help from seven legal clinics operated at a In 1975, Justice Ronald Sackville delivered Boston. She urged ‘Australian lawyers and range of welfare and emergency his seminal report, Homeless People and community advocates seeking to increase accommodation centres.17 There are ten the Law. Over the years, significant papers the rights and legal services to homeless participating law firms and legal assistance and reports have been written, particularly people [to] benefit from examining further is provided in all areas of law (with limited the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity the activities of public interest lawyers in services in criminal and family law matters).18 Commission National Inquiry into Homeless this field in the United States.’9 A key finding The Clinic is also involved in community AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, education and training activities and systemic declined in favour of a small grant for a role of COHRE in Australia has been advocacy and law reform initiatives, as well Scoping Study to be conducted. The complemented by the presence of Alison as providing ongoing training to participating initiative is now being driven by an informal Aggarwal in Sydney from 2003, as Research pro bono solicitors. The Clinic is ‘the first Steering Committee of volunteers, and Assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on legal service in Queensland which is supporters, in collaboration with private law Adequate Housing on women and specifically designed to address the legal firm Blake Dawson Waldron. The Scoping housing rights. needs of homeless people.’19 Study will assess the legal needs of people Since 2000, there has been an explosion who are homeless with a view to formulating In May 2004, the New South Wales Public in publications and academic interest recommendations about the model for a Interest Advocacy Centre and Public Interest regarding the legal and human rights issues specialist service that would be suitable for Law Clearinghouse also set up a Homeless experienced by people who are homeless. local conditions. Persons Legal Service, based in Sydney. On a recent count, prior to the year 2000, The Service was again modelled on the Finally, in South Australia, a coalition has about ten journal articles and publications Victorian and Queensland Clinics although been formed to develop a specialist legal had been published by Australians dealing the specific design was informed by a service for homeless people, again inspired with legal and human rights concerns detailed consultation process with a wide by the success of the services in Victoria, associated with homelessness, with only range of community and legal groups. The Queensland and New South Wales.23 The one article published prior to the 1990s.24 Service received twelve months funding Coalition recently sought $AU 80 000 from Since 2000, at least 60 articles have gone support from the Commonwealth the South Australian government to establish to print!25 Over the last five years, papers, Department of Family and Community the Clinic but, despite the support of the forums and training courses have been Services under the National Homelessness South Australian Council of Social Services delivered in a range of contexts26 and in Strategy and the Public Purposes Fund and Homelessness SA, the funding 2003, the Homelessness Legal Rights administered by the New South Wales application has been declined. Efforts Project was established at the Gilbert + Attorney-General’s Department. It relies continue. Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of on pro bono services from seven private New South Wales involving maintenance of At around the same time as the first specialist law firms,20 providing legal help from six a web site and publication of e-bulletins legal service for homeless people was community locations.21 As with its dealing specifically with the Australian created in Melbourne, Victoria, the Asia counterparts in other States, the Service legal and human rights of people facing Pacific Programme of the Centre on Housing has also been actively involved in systemic homelessness.27 ■ Rights and Evictions (COHRE) opened its legal and policy research and advocacy.22 doors in Napier Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne, *LLB (Hons) UWA LLM (Dist) University In Perth, Western Australia, the first steps Victoria in 2000. COHRE is an College London PhD Candidate (UNSW) have now been taken to set up a specialist international human rights non- Director, Homelessness Legal Rights 18 Homeless Persons Legal Clinic. In governmental organisation that specialises Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public October 2004, Labor Lawyers (Western in the international human right to adequate Law, University of New South Wales. Australia) and Human Rights WA held a housing. The COHRE Asia Pacific Address: 15 Arundel Street, Fremantle, public forum on “Homelessness and the Programme was established by Ken Western Australia, 6160. Telephone: +61 Law”, opened by the Hon Chief Justice Fernandes, a long time housing rights 8 9335 1180. Email [email protected] David Malcolm, Chief Justice of the Supreme community activist, originally from Pakistan Court of WA and addressed by Philip Lynch, with a history of working with local Coordinator of the PILCH Homeless Persons communities in a wide range of countries. # This is a very much abridged version of Legal Clinic in Melbourne, Victoria. Arising COHRE’s presence in Australia has acted a much longer article “Using the Law and out of that Forum, a funding application to as an additional catalyst bringing a strong Human Rights to Challenge Injustice for establish a Perth-based Clinic was human rights-based perspective to a wide People who are Homeless: An Australia submitted to the Attorney General of range of initiatives to promote access to Story” that will be available in full on the Western Australia. The application was justice for people who are homeless. The Parity section of the CHP Web Site Another Country: Histories of Homelessness South Australian Housing Policy: Retrospective/Prospective.

By David Kilner* • As a response to market failure (eg home ownership tenures. There was a focus the aftershocks of the Depression) on family housing for working people Introduction • As a response to crisis eg World between 1936 and the nineteen seventies, War II although housing for the elderly was also his paper is based on my book Housing • To promote economic management supported. Housing needs were increasingly Policy in South Australia since White T and growth being met, both general and special needs. Settlement which is fully referenced.1 • To assist industrial development and Since the early 1990s public investment has Therefore I have avoided the use of urbanisation declined dramatically. references in this article. The article focuses • To develop mature private markets on the South Australian experience. eg land, finance The Background to Purpose • To contain private sector prices Housing Investment through public sector competition. My purpose in this article is to explore several The following charts illustrate the pattern of themes: housing investment in South Australia since • The large scale public investment in The Current Problem World War Two. housing we once had in South Until the early 1990’s housing policy had a The charts are: Australia high profile in South Australia. Housing 1. All dwelling approvals in South • Why we had that investment investment (both public and private) was Australia from 1946 to 2005 per • How we benefited from it high and included both public housing and 1000 mean population • How we lost it

• Is there a chance we could get it 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 back? Dwelling Approvals per 1000 Population - SA - 1946-2005 And to ask: 19 • Have we focussed too much on a 16.0 nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: welfare argument when what is 14.0 needed is a broader social and 12.0 economic framework as well as 10.0 welfare solutions to housing issues? 8.0 6.0

When have Housing 4.0 Programs been supported 2.0 0.0 in South Australia? Housing Programs in South Australia since 1910 have attracted strongest public and political support when they have been couched as broad-based programs, in Govt Share in New Dwellings - 1956-2005 particular consumer or social programs, industry and economic programs, or 45 programs rewarding war service, but less 40 35 so as focused welfare programs. 30 The earliest programs date to 1910. Up to 25 about 1935 programs expanded home 20 ownership and were supported for a number 15 of reasons: 10 5 • To fight broad-based housing crises 0 eg high rents; inadequacies in the finance sector; low housing standards; and to address health issues SA % Australia % • As a bulwark against socialism or capitalism • To build citizenship, good workers, Proportion of Households Purchasing - SA - 1911-2001 family life, thrift and to uplift society • To reward service eg War Service 50 43.7 Homes to reward service in World 45 War I 40 • To promote social stability and 35 30.2 contentment 30 25 • To enhance the home as the 20.0 20 economic centre of consumerism in 15 the electric age. 10 5.2 From about 1936 onwards, and particularly 5 after the Second World War, new reasons 0 were advanced to support housing 1911 1933 1976 2001 programs: AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, 2. Government share in dwelling • Sustain economic growth through Firstly, Housing Programs attract better completions from 1956 to 2005 investment public and political support when they are 3. Number of purchasing households couched as broad-based consumer, social, • Foster urbanisation especially the 1911-2001 economic, industry or reward programs not growth of Adelaide as welfare programs. Public and political Comments • Link investment, employment and support for social housing has declined as A number of comments can be made about urban development to the benefit of the focus has moved away from a broad these charts. Firstly, South Australia’s investors and workers base towards an explicit welfare focus, dwelling approval rate was similar to the especially in the last ten years. Secondly, • Pursue active immigration policy to whole of Australia’s, except after 1993 when population growth, jobs and housing boost population. it collapsed. Secondly, the recent housing investment interact and mutually support ‘boom’ is illusory – the best level of output There was a determination to make South each other. Thirdly, as the stock of social in the ‘boom’ was not much better than the Australia internationally competitive through housing expanded, there was a “coat-tails” troughs of the preceding period. Thirdly, it creating a low-cost environment, and effect for meeting welfare needs, with the can also be seen that in South Australia, affordable housing was a key component sector better placed to respond to the needs the government contribution to new housing of this. of those worst off. up to 1990 was about twice the national level — an indicator of the importance of Effects Outcomes of government support to South Australian These strategies had a number of effects Previous Policy industry and the community. Including home in the post-War period. Previous policies – those in place until the ownership, government funded nearly 50% There was stronger economic growth than early nineteen nineties – had several effects: of new dwellings in South Australia between would otherwise have been the case. There 1946 and 1980. Until 1953 all public housing • There was a large stock of social was improved profitability for investors – money used in South Australia was State housing to meet a diversity of because of the low cost structure. There was or local money. The State did not begin housing need an improved equity of social outcomes using Commonwealth funds until 1953. Net through employment and affordable housing. • Housing was insulated from normal State indebtedness averaged about 20% There was a supportive, confident and market forces eg interest rates and of SDP during this period. Since about 2000, optimistic population which believed in its the competition for land this has been insignificant, despite recent future. There was also stronger population decisions to expand infrastructure • South Australia had low poverty growth as illustrated in the following chart. expenditure. rates after deducting housing costs In the period up to 1969, South Australian – the best pre/post drop in Australia 20 Factors Driving Post-War population growth was ahead of the national • Hence broad-based housing figure. Indeed in the nineteen sixties, South Strategies strategies also tackled Australia was the lead State for population A number of factors drove South Australia’s homelessness. growth for a while. Since then, South Australia post-War housing strategies. There was an has slipped far behind the rest of the country. The public debt incurred to build these initial catch-up effect after the Depression outcomes was affordable if managed and the War, both of which reduced housing Another effect of these policies was that the creatively and the clientele diversified, investment to very low levels. There was social housing stock reached 12% of the according to Treasury modelling in the early also a growth philosophy – grow population; total by 1991 — a level not reached by any nineteen nineties. But this didn’t happen, grow jobs; grow investment. It was other State in the Commonwealth. This and the consequence was a debt crisis considered that housing investment had a created an unprecedented capacity to instead, triggering off a long decline in the key role to play in this growth philosophy. address housing problems. However, this public housing sector. There was also plenty of opportunity eg capacity was simultaneously challenged and plentiful land, easy foreign investment, and investment became unsustainable as the How the Gains Were Lost low interest rates. Moreover, public housing client base changed towards the welfare The positive outcomes of the post-War was seen as a productive social and population in 1970’s and 1980’s. South period have gradually been lost, for a variety economic asset not as a cost. Home Australia may have built its social housing of reasons. ownership was also seen in this light. State stock too quickly, especially in the 1980s – investment in housing was conceived as a there was a 50% increase in the public The economic environment changed. The vital responsibility, underpinning housing stock in the space of ten years. This opportunities to attract foreign industrial expansion of industry and the social was the fastest rate ever and was largely investment behind Australia’s tariff walls development of the community. funded by government borrowings at the evaporated. The Australian economy was common public sector borrowing rate. deregulated and opened up to the world, Premier Playford’s and interest rates were also deregulated. Economic Strategy Messages The level of special needs grew in the A number of messages can be read from community with deinstitutionalisation, higher At the heart of these housing strategies lay this analysis of post-War housing policy. and longer-lasting unemployment and the South Australian Government’s economic strategy. This had a number of features: • Offer cheap land, labour, credit and Population Growth - SA & Australia infrastructure to investors, thus giving the State a competitive edge compared to other investment 80 67.7 64.8 options 70 60 55.1 • Build low cost workers’ housing 50 (rental and purchase) to keep money 40 34.9 wages low and encourage 30 investment 20 10 • Pursue foreign and national 0 investment actively 1949-1969 1969-2004

• Actively manage land markets to SA Australia

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness bear down on costs familial and demographic change. Public Australia has experienced rapid price • The aim should be anti-inflationary, housing became welfare housing as inflation in housing and land markets. to pressure prices and improve government perceptions of their role affordability and access On the other hand the new Housing Plan changed. Commonwealth loan finance for South Australia, with its renewed • Sustain viability of social housing became grants, meaning capital starvation emphasis on affordable housing for a broader through better social mix and new and a focus on housing those in most need. financial instruments The previous social housing financing cross-section of the population, is right in principle but under-resourced in practice. system became unsustainable as a • Improvement of South Australia’s consequence. Recent and competitive edge. There was a broader context of the State Current Policies Lacking the attractions of other States, Bank collapse and the rise of economic South Australia needs adequate social It must be asked if recent economic policies rationalism. and physical infrastructure and affordable in South Australia are counter-productive, housing, to help compete with others. It must also be asked if we failed to meet with a focus on debt reduction and the needs of a broad enough cross-section budgetary restraint on the capital side. Challenges of people through public housing in the Economic growth, private investment and nineteen eighties and nineties? By trying to These suggestions are against current population growth are comparatively weak. wisdom which says - contain State debt to meet the needs of the worst off too quickly, We export our unemployment. we created the potential for a financial attract investment via a better credit collapse which in the long run undermined Bring back the Ghosts? rating. But historically and comparatively there is no evidence this works. What works the capacity to help more of those in deep Given this, is there a case for a new broad- need. In other words, was the wrong stock is to look like a going concern with growth based consumer, industry or reward housing potential. A new broad-based housing provided to the wrong customer group in program? Obviously there is no case for a the wrong places ? Perhaps an effort to program could be an important component large-scale reward-based program. There keep on housing more working families of this rejuvenation. is a case for a broad-based consumer or would have left the social housing sector in social program, because the gains of the However, we need to resolve how much better financial health, improved public past are being lost and the force of events needs-based housing we can afford at any acceptance and increased the capacity to will demand a solution. To a degree there given point in time. We have to get the help more in deep need over time as we is a case for an industry program to take numbers right — financial viability is the key were able to discharge previous debt. advantage of global investment patterns. to a successful social housing system. But PARITY · Volume 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 In practice, despite debates within Treasury there is more than one road to viability A new housing crisis is emerging with the and the government housing policy arena, (Treasury officers developed an alternative following features: 21 adaptation to new realities and to debt reduction in the nineties). possibilities was not made. The result was • Falling access to home ownership Histories of Homelessness Another Country: that the credibility and social appeal of public Outcomes housing were lost in the nineteen nineties. • Falling social housing stock A new broad-based social housing program As an illustration of this change, it can be • Growing private rental market and could have several outcomes: said that in South Australia in 1960 a rising rents • More affordable housing for whole broad cross-section of the population community wanted to buy or rent from the Housing • Shrinking land supply and rising costs Trust – by 1990 most of the community had • General inflation of house prices and • Public support — if it results in more lost this preference, as evidenced by rents, reducing social equity and jobs, higher standard of living, better research conducted by the housing leaving some households perilously housing outcomes authorities. placed if interest rates rise too much • The chance to provide more welfare By the mid-nineties, debt reduction had • Excessive height, density and outcomes within general housing become the imperative. redevelopment of older areas due to policy. ■ Some Recent Trends the urban growth boundary *David Kilner is currently Senior Policy Officer for the Community Housing Council of South There have been a number of trends in • Steeper urban price gradient and Australia Inc, and also maintains his consultancy recent years: more social segregation practice. He is the author of From Dream to • The loss of Govt housing banks eg • Intergenerational disparities and Reality: a History of the Northern Suburbs Savings Bank, State Bank conflict. Housing Co-operative and Housing Policy in South Australia Since White Settlement. • The loss of state developers eg SA A new consumer/social program would have Urban Lands Trust the following features: Footnote • The loss of co-operative financial • A mix of land, home ownership and 1. Kilner D., Housing Policy in South Australia since White Settlement, Digital Print institutions eg building societies rental strategies Australia, Adelaide, 2005 • The decline of social housing with the loss of over 10,000 units of accommodation since 1996. Adelaide Households not in Home Ownership or Public Housing There has been a slow decline of housing success, illustrated by the following chart. 25 23.1 22.2 Adelaide now has an urban growth boundary 20.5 whose effects will be growing urban 20 18.8 consolidation. There has been a severe loss of capital funding through the CSHA. We 15 are currently privatising scarce public land as we shed public housing stock. Welfare 10 housing has been in a downward spiral loosing public support and (maybe) political 5 support. ‘Welfare’ housing has been isolated 0 from the mainstream (which is suicide). Along 1986 1991 1996 2001 with other States and Territories, South AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, From ‘Vagrant’ to ‘Nuisance’: 200 Years of Public Space Law In Queensland

By Dr Tamara Walsh, Homeless Persons as a nuisance’ under the new Act is a $750 fine Lecturer in Law, TC Beirne ‘Public Nuisance’ or six months’ imprisonment. In practice, School of Law, University of penalties have indeed gone up; the average By 1993, it was formally recognised that Queensland. the Act might not be suitable for continued fine amount imposed for public nuisance is enforcement in contemporary Queensland around $210 with two months to pay. n 1931, the Queensland Parliament society. A Review Committee set up to make Further, an increasing number of public passed the Vagrants, Gaming and Other I recommendations regarding the future of nuisance defendants are being committed Offences Act, the object of which was 10 the Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences to prison. stated to be ‘to make better provision for Act explicitly stated that ‘issues such as the prevention and punishment of offences vagrancy are more adequately dealt with Vagrant or Nuisance? – by vagrants and disorderly persons.’ In through welfare agencies rather than the The Result is the Same 2005, the Queensland Parliament replaced criminal justice system.’4 Yet, the Act While the repeal of the Vagrants, Gaming this Act with the Summary Offences Act. continued in force. Ten years later, the newly and Other Offences Act was a welcome While the word ‘vagrant’ was no longer formed Rights in Public Space Action Group used, the object of the Act was vastly (RIPS)5 stepped up the campaign for the development in Queensland’s public space similar: ‘ensuring, as far as practicable, Act to be repealed. law, its legacy of criminalising homelessness members of the public may lawfully use lives on. Arrests are still based on In response, the government announced and pass through public places without prejudice and a misunderstanding of the that a new (and long-awaited) Summary interference from acts of nuisance nature and causes of homelessness. Offences Act would replace the Vagrants, committed by others’ (emphasis added). Observation of the cases coming before the It is not necessary to stretch one’s Gaming and Other Offences Act. The courts, and perusal of the judgements imagination too far to determine who, in Summary Offences Act 2005 promised to 22 delivered, demonstrates that archaic, fact, these ‘others’ are. And recent history ‘modernise’ public space law and ‘reflect discriminatory attitudes towards has shown that ‘vagrants’ and community standards’ while still ‘helping ‘nuisances’ are drawn from the same ranks. police to intervene to prevent serious crime’; homelessness still exist, despite 200 years it was recognised that the term ‘vagrant’ of public space law history. The right of Homeless Persons as itself was ‘outdated’ and ‘based on obsolete people experiencing homelessness to enjoy English laws’6 ‘Vagrants’ and use public space, as equal members The offence of vagrancy was thereby of the public, is still not being recognised. The Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences repealed, however, in effect, it was Whether they are characterised as ‘vagrants’ Act found its roots in medieval legislation, abolished in name alone. Instead, it was and was closely modelled on the British or a ‘nuisance’, the result is the same: a replaced by the offence of ‘public nuisance’ Vagrants Act of 1824. Historically, vagrants fundamental violation of individuals’ human which allows police to arrest a person who were confined to ‘asylums’ where they were rights and an affront to their dignity and self- acts in a disorderly or offensive manner in demoralised and stigmatised, forced to respect. ■ a public place where that behaviour work under extremely poor conditions, and interferes, or is likely to interfere, with the Footnotes removed from the ‘delicate’ eyes of the peaceful passage through, or enjoyment 1. For a more thorough history of vagrancy, wider community.1 Under the Queensland of, a public place by a member of the public. see Tamara Walsh, ‘Waltzing Matilda One Act, ‘vagrants’ could be fined or imprisoned Further, separate offences of ‘begging’ and Hundred Years Later: Interactions Between if they were found to be without visible Homeless Persons and the Criminal Justice ‘public drunkenness’ were retained under lawful means of support, habitually drunk System in Queensland’ (2003) 25(1) Sydney the new Act, and police move-on powers Law Review 75. or begging. (contained in a separate Act) were 2. Ibid at 79. Throughout the 20th century, the Vagrants, expanded to cover all of Queensland’s Gaming and Other Offences Act certainly public spaces.7 3. Ibid at 87. 4. Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences Act had the effect of demeaning and Many people experiencing homelessness Review Committee, Final Report to the restricting the lives of people experiencing continue to be prosecuted under the new homelessness in Queensland. Cases of Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Summary Offences Act. A recent study 1993 at 1. homeless persons being charged with found that as many as 24% of public 5. RIPS is a coalition of community lawyers in vagrancy for eating out of garbage bins, nuisance defendants coming before begging and sleeping out were not Queensland committed to ensuring that Magistrates’ Courts in Queensland are marginalised people who access public uncommon; in 1999/2000 for example, homeless, and as many as 50% more are spaces have the same rights and freedoms around 300 people were charged for being at risk of homelessness.8 Further, the to enjoy those spaces as other community without lawful means or begging alone.2 disproportionate impact of these kinds of members; see www.rips.asn.au. Predictably, many of these people were laws on Indigenous people continues, with 6. The Hon Judy Spence MP, ‘Spence reforms Indigenous. While formal statistics on the around 30% of public nuisance defendants vagrants legislation’, Media Statement, 27 Indigenous status of those charged were (and as many as 70% in some regional September 2004. 9 not collected, much of the reported case jurisdictions) identifying as Indigenous. 7. See the Police Powers and Responsibilities law concerned Indigenous people.3 The It seems, therefore, that the only difference Act 2000 (Qld). Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences Act between the Acts in practice is the extent 8. See Tamara Walsh, No Offence: The thereby continued the legacy of the to which society is deemed to condemn the Enforcement of Offensive Language and Queensland Aboriginal ‘Protection Acts’ behaviour of these ‘others’; the maximum Offensive Behaviour Offences in Queensland, 2006. that allowed for the exclusion of Indigenous penalty for vagrancy under the old Act was people from public space and general a $100 fine or six months’ imprisonment, 9. Ibid at 17.

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness social life. while the maximum penalty for ‘public 10. Ibid at 31-32 Whatever Happened to the Revolution? … Activism and the Early Days of Youth Refuges in NSW

By Michael Coffey, National Youth Coalition of Housing (NYCH) It is also the time when new notions of youth Executive Officer Youth traced how activism and advocacy has work practice such as the logic of sub- Accommodation Association changed over the last few decades. It is cultural theory (aka Centre for Contemporary of NSW (YAA) sourced from the dusty archives of YAA, Cultural Studies) CCCS Birmingham. This the NYCH and from people such as marks a shift in youth work practice5 away his article offers a snapshot and a story Narelle Clay, Laurie Matthews, Janet from youth as a problem or victim, or juvenile Tabout the beginnings of Youth Ryan, David Annis Brown, Peter Cronau, delinquent … towards the groovy rhetoric Accommodation Association (YAA) and of Paul Van Ryk, Vaughan Bowie, Heather of empowerment, enabling independence, the first youth refuges in NSW in the 1970’s. Kemp, Donna Curtis, Maria Leebeek and giving youth a voice and recognising sub- It traces the more ‘activist’ origins in the various people with sector memories. I have cultures. mid to late 1970’s and refers to some of the added additional material compiled from The 1970’s were exciting times to be young key movers and shakers and events which other sources such as “Youth in Australia: in NSW. In 1970 the first video game was transpired. It is a story written from a vantage Policy Administration and Politics” by Irving, released — Pong (Space Invaders came point of an organisation which has been Maunders and Sherington2 who tackle the much later in 1978). In 1971 MacDonalds operating as the peak organisation for youth history of youth organisations in Australia opened its first store in Australia at Yagoona. homeless organisations in NSW for well over — as ‘trainspotters’— with much more By 1973 18-year-olds were given the vote, 26 years and with an access to the archives empirical rigour than I would care to muster. Australia pulled out of the Vietnam, university which span this period. Interestingly, Irving et.al describe YAA as a fees were abolished. TAFE started in 1974. ‘radical’ organisation.3 Perhaps in the mould In a recent celebration of YAA’s history we In 1975 young people in NSW got their own

of the naughty and political Eureka Youth 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 invited comments from workers who had radio station 2JJ. League of the 1950s. worked in the 70’s and 80’s. The following However, commentary tells us that from example, captures the more activist and Youth homelessness has been a social issue 23 the mid 1970s on there was a significant

radical beginnings of a ‘youth refuge in Australia since the beginning of white Histories of Homelessness Another Country: increase in demand from homeless young movement’. occupation, with pejorative terms such as people using night shelters or sleeping rough. 'street arabs' being used during the 19th It’s very important to recognise an and early 20th centuries to describe The One Step Forward report in 1982/83, acknowledge that many of the homeless young people. The Neglected and noted workers in supported Criminal Children's Act 1864 which defined accommodation and housing politics “that much more was involved than neglected children as and servicing were from a number of young people running backgrounds of radicalisation in “Any child found wandering about or away from home. The changing broader struggles — women’s frequenting any street thoroughfare structure of economic and social life rights, Aboriginal rights, gay and tavern or place of public resort or was thought to be exerting lesbian rights, and early sleeping in the open air and who pressures beyond the control of the environmental struggles; and it’s should not have any home or settled young and forcing them into important first to recognise that place of abode or any visible means homelessness”.6 many of us who worked in the of subsistence.”4 The mid 70’s the predominant assumption supported accommodation area Services for homeless young people over among policy makers was that the 1974- also did considerable work in the one hundred years ago centred on notions 75 recession had caused a temporary youth housing sector being critically of apprehension and detention of children unemployment problem. It was assumed involved in the various versions of and young people, who were placed in that all that was required was a number of Shelter at State and national levels. reformatories or boarded out, a process short-term "band-aids" to tide us over until It was this that led us to making the known as 'child saving'. Governments acted full employment was restored. connections between the personal as quasi parent where the state had powers and the political when it came to In 1974 the Commonwealth introduced the to care for children who were deserted or looking at root causes of homeless Homeless Persons assistance Program abandoned, ill treated or found living on the among the young people we dealt (HPAP), which mainly went to the religious streets. The model used was one of with and to knowing that only organisations for single homeless men, it 'resocialising' young people to more operating on a case-work band aid also was used later to build youth refuges productive ways of life and at its worst made approach was inadequate. We knew and shelters. the ‘stolen generation’ possible. that we would get little unless the The first NSW youth refuge, Young Peoples pillars of sexism, racism and Prior to the 1970’s the provision of Refuge, opened in February 1975 in homophobia were continually services to the homeless was through state Chippendale as a temporary alternative undermined in our relations with funded projects and the welfare work of the environment for young people. As an each other in the workplace, with ‘volunteer sector’ and the church alternative to large state run institutional our funders, and with young charities. While youth policy and affairs were homes/remand centres or religious orgs people . . . mainly focused on the National Fitness which provided foster care services. In July program. In the early 1970’s a new funded Youth worker1 1976, Bankstown Youth Refuge and NGO community sector came online, Taldemunde opened with funding described The material here, (such as the above quote energised by a new sense of community by the SMH as being on “an experimental from a youth worker), was also used for and spirit emerged in Australia, following a basis”. the “Youth Homelessness Matters” re- the passing of a repressive and extended animating “activism’ presentation at the liberal dynasty, with the progressive Whitlam From Peter Cronau’s7 notes that early youth Fourth National Homelessness Conference led Labor Government and brief window of refuges used the ‘house parents’ model, held in Sydney in March 2006. Where the opportunity from 1972 to 1975. where the first refuge paradigm was that AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, their residents needed ‘love’ and ‘restoration From the records of the first meeting of family’ they often employed house parents 19-9-7911 they agreed that: to do this. Apparently there was a rapid “YRAG would be a vehicle for turnover of staff ‘houseparents.’ This was lobbying (using simple statistics); phased out over the years in preference for info sharing; support and an arena the ‘youth worker’ model. for sharing ideas and new methods Paul Van Ryk Notes that: being implemented in the refuges.” “Many of us also had very strong After a few meetings the group shifted from critiques of the family as it was then being about ‘reflection’ and ‘support’ socially constructed and again towards ‘action’ and ‘advocacy’. In David recognised the need to conduct Annis Brown’s words Old YAA Logo work in questioning and challenging ”We decided that things needed this construction, which at times put changing outside of our services, us at odds with other childrens and In 1981/82 YSS was evaluated and that just talking about it amongst youth services, and certainly documented in “One Step Forward” and a ourselves wasn’t going to do much continually made us less than senate inquiry into the needs of Homeless and that we needed a base from popular with governments and youth. Both emphasised the need for long which to work for change” funders.” term accommodation options for Young Pretty much the base assumption for YAA people. YSS continued in 1983/84 with a In 1975 Shelter NSW and in 1976 the for the next few decades, of working for national budget of $2.1million. The states Tenants Union were established. young people. and territories also provided $5.9 million. Youth Refuges Other youth homelessness peaks emerged YAA established in NSW (first as YRAG, around the country at this time . . . The get funded then YRA and YRAA and then YAA ) Youth Accommodation Coalition of Victoria In 1979 the Commonwealth and States YAA began in 1979 as the Youth Refuge was also established in 1979 as a coalition established a three year pilot Youth Services Action group, with 18 member services.10 of groups and individuals concerned Scheme (YSS) to provide emergency as a group of workers in services who got about youth homelessness. Initially in 1981 accommodation, referral and info services together to discuss problems, to break down there was an attempt to have a statewide to young people under 18 described as the extreme isolation which existed between Queensland Youth Accommodation ‘runaways’ ‘street kids’. This pilot extended them, share information and support each Coalition (QYAC), this broad based Coalition to 5 years until SAAP was established. Prior other. YRAG was first located at Burnside eventually broke into two separate Coalitions 24 to YSS some services had been funded Homes in Nth Parramatta. — SEQYAC and NQYAC. It is worth noting through HPAP. 8 And some states such as here, that at a time when it was still illegal NSW, SA and Victoria had developed Foundation members at the first meeting for men to have sex with each other credit separate youth accommodation programs. (on record) were: should be given to the bureaucrats and Prior to YSS, services responses were • Annandale Young People’s Refuge : Ministers here and in other States who went described as ad-hoc and the YSS was Eva Shervashidze, Margaret Bail out on a limb at times to fund services. In welcomed as an attempt towards providing NSW Twenty Ten opened in Darlinghurst in some structure and consistency. • Bankstown Youth Refuge: Peter 1981. Holt, Chris Holt, Kerry May, Geoff The introduction of YSS brought a new set Garnen, John Early 1980s and of problems to the field services were uncoordinated, under funded and • Blacktown Youth Refuge : Peter before SAAP insufficiently spread in a geographical sense, Cronau, Lesley Moore YRAG merges with Combined Youth there were wide disparities in funding levels. Refuges Association to become Youth • Fairfield Youth Refuge: Steve Warren It was also realised that, for young people, Refuge Association (YRA) representing the income security needs were paramount and • Kings Cross : Kaye Garner interests of both workers and management that after a short stay in emergency of youth refuges.12 Membership in 1980 was • Caretakers Cottage — Paddington : accommodation, there was nowhere else 25 services. YRA was first located in Laurie Matthews to go. Refuges were not the answer, and Burnside Homes in Bankstown Around this so an emphasis began to be given to public • Taldemunde – North Sydney: Paul time Medium term services emerged to housing.9 Borger. solve the problem of refuges having nowhere Another Country: Histories of Homelessness PARITY · Volume 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006

Christa : Sydney Town Hall mid 1980’s 25 nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: to refer young people to. At the 1982 In 1981, Catherine Mackenzie (as YRAA The Shelter or the Streets campaigns began AGM, the extra ‘A’ was added onto YRA, NSW and NYCH delegate) noted at the first in the early 1980s. Yet, it was also a time to become the Youth Refuge National Youth Accommodation Workshop of building and establishment and of working Accommodation Association, to account in Canberra youth accommodation workers through differences and putting the issues for the growth of medium and long term came together from all over Australia to form of youth homelessness on the radar, which services and move ‘Beyond Refuges’. some sort of national apparatus. NYCH contributed to the establishment of SAAP emerged out of that workshop. This was in 1985 and the work of Brian Burdekin in There was much disagreement and linked to a national campaign using the the 1989, when for a brief few years, the difference in the sector. The YRA Philosophy slogan “Shelter or the Streets”. NYCH issue of youth homelessness reached a Sub committee in 1979-80 reported: received funding and began, it held its first zenith in terms of public awareness. ■ “It was identified by workers at the inaugural meeting in September, 1982. First time that there were not consistent NYCH youth housing policy drafted in Whatever happened links between ideologies, principles September 1982. National secretariat of to the revolution? and practices, which created NYCH was established in Fitzroy Melbourne If you can remember the Skyhooks song — difficulty and confusion.” And March 1983. you might remember the answer! concern over the ‘geographical As Narelle Clay noted in 1994 at the first distribution of funds for Youth National AFHO conference, Footnotes Refuges”. 1. From “25 Years of YAA” October 2005 “The youth homeless sector was 2. {Irving, 1995 #455} As a solution they recommended to set up well organised, even in pre SAAP an ideology subcommittee and a profile days.” 3. {Irving, 1995 #455, pg 328} subcommittee. From a statement of 4. Jaggs, 1986 {Jaggs, 1986 #521} philosophy from a service in Nth NSW: In the decade ahead the work continued and things got a bit more radical. Perhaps 5. Though the notions of youth as a period of “as workers at . . . we are storm and stress still underpinned that 80’s for YAA and youth accommodation thinking, ref G Stanley Hall (1904) committed to understanding how services in NSW, could be characterised as young people are oppressed in our 6. “One Step Forward” report on the Youth a period of feisty activism, idealism, where Services Scheme. society and as a result of this anything was possible, with bold and 7. From the YAA Archives understanding, taking action to statements, ‘bush conferences’, calls to ensure that all young people we action, marches, sleep outs and public 8. Homes away from Home (1988) Coleen come in contact with are treated as campaigns, a sense of ‘us and them’. But Chesterman fully human, equal and much it was a struggle to get noticed, to be heard 9. Everything you always wanted to know respected members of society . . . in to be on the political and social agenda. about youth housing (1988) NYCH reality young people intelligent, Workers at the YAA 25 year event, recalled 10. YAA 1989 “Historical Context of the Youth zestful, powerful cooperative vital to stunts like staging sit-outs outside politicians Housing Sector” the world and loving toward each offices, lots of street theatre and of sitting 11. From the minutes of the meeting: attended other . . . any appearance to the behind politicians at question time in by Annandale young Peoples Refuge, Bankstown Youth Refuge, Blacktown Youth contrary are merely the effects of Parliament holding up big signs “LIAR” or Refuge, Fairfield Youth Refuge, Kings Cross past mistreatment and unresolved “NOT TRUE”. Some of the photos on this Refuge, Caretakers Cottage (Laurie M), pain . . . as a united force, lets break page are from the YAA “Shelter or the streets Taldemunde. the chain of pain and uncover the / Your Dream Our Nightmare” sleep outs at 12. Vaughan Bowie — Chairman’s report First reality!” Sydney Town Hall in the 1980’s. AGM in August 1980 AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, History of Response to Homelessness

By Elena Rosenman, mental institutions were also widely used This image of homelessness remained until AFHO Policy Officer as accommodation for the homeless.3 the 1960s and 70s when poverty and homelessness were reinstated in the public Depression and economic downturn at Homelessness in Australia is not a new consciousness. The rise of Women’s the close of the nineteenth century rendered phenomenon — iterations, definitions and Liberation brought the issue of women’s homelessness as a significant social issue. policy responses can be traced back to the and children’s homelessness to the fore. Families were evicted onto the street and arrival of Europeans. It could be argued that The first women’s refuge in the world, people who were homeless became homelessness holds quite a specific and Chiswick Women’s Aid, opened in London increasingly visible in public places in big romantic place in the Australian cultural in 1971. Sydney soon followed and Elsie, Australian cities like Sydney, Melbourne and identity. Our unofficial anthem, Waltzing the first women’s refuge in Australia, was Brisbane. By the century’s close most of Matilda, tells the story of a jolly swagman, opened in 1974. “This was the unlikely these cities had night refuges which provided a man who travelled across Australia in beginning of one of the most significant shelter — though on an overcrowded and search for work, and who, at the end of a social movements of twentieth century temporary basis. By 1908 the federal long day, downed his bedding and set up Australia. Within ten years there were over government had introduced pensions for camp by a billabong — grateful for the shade the aged and invalid. There was yet no forty women’s refuges in the state of New of a Coolibah tree. Banjo Patterson wrote system of public housing which left people South Wales and more than one hundred the poem in 1895, however the appeal of and sixty in Australia.”6 in poverty at the mercy of private landlords.4 his swagman remains current. In many ways With little respite before the beginning of Through the 1970s there was an increasing the swagman can be seen as emblematic the first World War, major economic recognition of homelessness as social of Australian values — a man as worn and depression hit Australia in the post war problem the required coordinated national rugged as the Australian landscape, a down period in the 1930s. Unemployment rose action. The Homeless Person’s to earth labourer who would rather die than above 30 percent, the construction of new Assistance Act (1973) Commonwealth was capitulate to traditional authority. The homes was halted and housing conditions operationalised as the Homeless Person’s Australian legacy of the swagman echoes continued to deteriorate. Tent cities Assistance Program. This was the beginning a broader tradition of gypsies, travellers and sprang up in many larger cities and a of official recognition of homelessness as a drifters. Their itinerant freedom is often read significant minority of people found social issue and beginning of coordinated 26 as a quixotic refusal to be trapped by 5 themselves living in huts and humpies. government response. The Supported material possession or social and familial Accommodation Assistance Act was expectations. The reality of homelessness Between 1937 and 1942 the South passed in 1985. The Supported — in the colonies as in the cities and towns Australian, Victorian and NSW Governments Accommodation Assistance Program of Australia today is far less poetic. established Housing Commission and these were flooded with applicants even though (SAAP) brought together the eight In 1788, the First Fleet landed in Botany Commission housing was only available to homelessness programs funded by Bay, dispossessing Aboriginal and Torres people with permanent employment. In individual state and territory governments Strait Islanders and marking the beginning 1943, the Commonwealth Housing under one nationally coordinated of their history of homelessness in Australia. Commission was established to examine program. SAAP I focused on crisis and Over 200 years later, homelessness in the extent of Australia's housing problems, emergency funding within three sub Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and to recommend how these might be programs — general services, youth services communities cannot be understood without best resolved. The Commonwealth and women’s emergency services funds reference to the legacy of European Commission endorsed the view that all and funded 500 homeless assistance colonisation and the ensuing dispossession Australians have a right to decent housing, services. SAAP II took up in 1989. The and physical and cultural displacement. For ‘every citizen of the Commonwealth is program moved away from sub programs those arriving in the colonies, the first entitled to a good standard house and this to broader target groups and shifts the years of white settlement saw almost should not depend on his economic position emphasis from crisis support to providing everyone fed, clothed and housed from or the policy of the particular state in assistance to people to move through public rations. In his overview of Australian which he (sic) resides.’ The year after the services to independence. homelessness, Clem Lloyd suggests that Commission’s establishment, the housing Adequate housing was also the focus of the social control exerted by colonial shortage in Australia was estimated at international legal and political frameworks. authorities was assured until the 1830s and 300 000 homes. 1945 saw the first In 1976, Australia ratified the International thus vagrancy in Australia was minimal.1 As Commonwealth State Housing Agreement, Covenant of Economic, Social and Australian society expanded through the the significance of which was two-fold. First, Cultural Rights binding itself to the 1800s boarding houses were set up in large it recognised a clear division of labour within progressive realisation of the human right cities to accommodate young men, single the Australian Federation with respect to to adequate housing for all people.1987 women, couples and families. These were the provision of public housing. The was declared International Year of Shelter seen as fashionable and reputable States would be responsible for service for the Homeless and the Australian accommodation. The first charity in Australia, delivery, while the Commonwealth would government made a formal commitment the Benevolent Society of New South Wales provide the financial support necessary to to implement policies that would was established in 1813 and other societies, make the program feasible through cheap effectively meet the needs of homeless religious organisations and charities followed loans. Secondly, it signified for the first time people. shortly after. As Lloyd details, to provide in Australia’s history a willingness by the shelter to those who needed it, ‘destitute Commonwealth to support the provision The picture of homelessness in Australia asylums were funded and built by the of public housing as a viable tenure. The broadened significantly when the Australian colonial administrations, with private period after the Second World War saw Human Rights and Equal Opportunity charities playing an important but economic upturn, employment and the Commission (HREOC) published their report, supplementary role.2 Between 1829 and government strenuously promoted home Our Homeless Children in 1988. This report 1859, Western Australia, Victoria, South ownership. Prosperity was short-lived and was followed in 1993 by the Human Rights Australian and Queensland were founded. recession hit Australia again in the early Commissioner’s (Burdekin) Report. This These states also established public asylums 1950s and the core group of visibly report brought the human rights issues of to accommodate people who were homeless people in Australia after WWII overt abuse within mental health institutions,

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness homeless. Portentously, lunacy asylums or was single, older men. and covert neglect in the wider community, to the attention of the general SAAP sector and an enhanced reduction of homelessness. In 2000 Victoria public. The report sparked the accountability, reporting and evaluation became the first state to develop its own deinstitutionalisation of mental health framework. SAAP V also includes the Homelessness Strategy. Western Australia services in Australia. The promised shift of requirement that all state and territory followed in 2002, the ACT and Northern funding to community based services fell governments increase their program Territory in 2004 and Queensland in far short of need and more people with funding contributions to SAAP to match 2005. mental illness slipped onto the streets of the Australian Government's investment Australian cities and into transient on a 50/50 basis from the third year of The 2001 census showed that one in accommodation and homeless assistance the Agreement. SAAP V also did not every 200 Australians was homeless. Of services. include any increase in funding beyond these 100 000 people, only 15 000 were CPI. accommodated in homeless assistance In 1994 the Supported Accommodation services. While the policy responses to Assistance Act (1994) was passed. The act During the 1990s the homelessness sector homelessness have progressed and included a definition of homelessness which continued to take shape in circumstances solidified over 200 years of European had been missing from the 1989 act. that were often difficult. The Social and occupation, it seems that a truly national Community Services (SACS) Award was 4 (1) For the purposes of this Act, a person and integrated approach is an aspiration introduced in 1991. The first National is homeless if, and only if, he or she for the future. ■ Conference on Homelessness was held has inadequate access to safe and in 1996 in Melbourne. Six hundred people Footnotes secure housing. came together over three days to share 1. Lloyd, C, “ ‘Poor Naked Wretches:’ a (2) For the purposes of this Act, a their knowledge, experience and historical overview of Australian homelessness,” A History of European person is taken to have inadequate commitment to addressing homelessness. Housing in Australia, ed Patrick Troy, 289. access to safe and secure housing In 1998 the Australian Federation of 2. Lloyd, C, op cit, p 291. if the only housing to which the Homelessness Organisations (AFHO) person has access: was established as the national peak for 3. Lloyd, C, op cit, p 292. homelessness organisations. The second 4. Hayward, D, The Reluctant Landlords: a) damages, or is likely to damage, National Homelessness Conference was A History of Public Housing in Australia, the person's health; or www.infoxchange.net.au/rhchome/iurhc/s0 held in Melbourne in 1999 and 800 people 201.htm b) threatens the person's safety; or attend from across the country. The same 5. Kemeny, J. (1983) The Great Australian year, the Australian government established c) marginalises the person through Nightmare, Melbourne: Georgian House. the National Homelessness Strategy to failing to provide access to 6. McFerran, L, A History of Domestic 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 provide leadership in developing Violence, Refuges and Exclusion in d) adequate personal amenities; approaches for the prevention and Australia. 27 e) the economic and social supports nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: that a home normally affords; f) places the person in circumstances which threaten or adversely affect the adequacy, safety, security and affordability of that housing. Through bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments SAAP III provided more than $1 billion to 1 200 homeless assistance services in 1995. SAAP III introduced significant reforms and initiatives. The scope of the definition of homelessness in the new act allowed services to develop prevention and early intervention models for people in inadequate housing or at risk of homelessness. The National Data Collection Agency (NDCA) was also established as part of the reforms under SAAP III. While some funds were made available for improving services no growth funding was provided in the agreement. When SAAP IV took over in 2000 it was shaped by four strategic themes agreed to by the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments. These were: 1. Client-focused service delivery, 2. Integration and collaboration between SAAP and other service systems, 3. Increasing performance, knowledge and skills, 4. Working together. The current five year SAAP Agreement (SAAP V) took effect in 2005. The new features of SAAP V include the introduction of an Innovation and Investment Fund to drive important strategic reform within the AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, The NSW Women’s Refuge Movement

By Catherine Gander, Department of Housing would not house State Government agreed to provide gap- Executive Officer women with children without a husband. funding to the refuges that were already NSW Women’s Refuge This was changed thanks to the WRM federally funded and new funding to some Resource Centre campaigning to change the definition of centre’s that were not included in the Federal “family”, so as to include single mothers Health Program. Gradually other refuges ...because violence against women and lesbians. gained funding, but it was not until January has always been around and 1985, eleven years after the founding of the Women escaping domestic violence with nobody wanted to know and women first women’s refuge, that refuges received their children were also discriminated against had to hide the bruises and lie to secure funding through the Supported by landlords and real estate agents, who everyone and tell the doctor she fell Accommodation Assistance Program would often refuse to lease to them. They down the stairs or walked into a (SAAP), jointly funded by the Commonwealth faced great financial difficulties, had poor door and he asked no questions and and State/Territory Governments. prospect of finding employment that would gave her some pills and the police pay a decent wage. The limited income ignored it and the courts took no The Establishment support they were entitled to in the form of action and the church turned a blind child support benefit, required the husband of the WRM eye and the experts assumed that having access to their address. While The first state conference was held in she must have provoked it. Because charities gave handouts, they often put Bathurst in February 1979, and since then there was no place for her to go pressure on the women to “reconcile” with NSW refuges have met regularly to where he would not find her and she their violent partners. exchange information and ideas, the had no money and he had the establishment of regions followed. Then in house and the car and the power so The issue of domestic violence, as well as 1983 NSW Women’s Working Party was the sons learned to hit and the sexual assault was brought into the open created to carry out work and make daughters learned to take it and at feminist consciousness raising meetings. decisions in between state conferences. never hit back and she had no During the International Women’s Day The NSW Women’s Refuge Resource friends left and no one believed her Celebrations in 1974, a forum was held on Centre opened in 1986, to support and and he threatened to kill her and “Women in a violent society”. This forum resource the Working Party and the WRM 28 maybe the kids if she ever left and at was the catalyst for the establishment of last some women got really bloody the first domestic violence refuge in The Movement also recognised that angry and vowed that this had to Australia, and also of the Sydney Rape Indigenous women, lesbians and women stop and began to make waves and Crisis Centre. from culturally and linguistically diverse got some safe houses and made the backgrounds faced additional barriers. The first refuge was established in April 1974 state pay for them and we go on Therefore, specialist support groups and by a group of women who squatted 2 demanding a fair go for women and representative positions were established adjacent properties, and worked as children and it might take a hundred to address issues of access and equity for volunteers. The two houses were called years but that won’t stop us ‘cause these groups. Elsie and Minnie (now Elsie Women and we want a world where women are Children’s Refuge). Within the first 6 weeks Today the NSW Women’s Refuge Movement strong and children are happy and they had 48 women and 35 children. represents 57 refuges across NSW. It has we won’t go away till we get it … Unfortunately the issue of unmet demand been pivotal in improving the response to and for lots and lots of other has stayed with us ever since! women and children experiencing/escaping reasons we are a part of the domestic violence. The Movement played women’s refuge movement.1 Other refuges followed Elsie. Initially refuges a key role in the establishment of the DV were run by volunteers and funded solely line and the Court assistance Scheme, as History of the WRM by community donations. Recognising well as advocating on issues such as funding The NSW Women’s Refuge Movement domestic violence as a social and for refuges, changes to relevant legislation (WRM) came out of, what is commonly systemic problem, refuges sought to do in the areas of family law, domestic violence referred to as the second wave of more than provide a safe place for women law, sexual assault, child sexual assault and feminism in the seventies and the analysis and children. Advocacy, community housing. The movement was also crucial that domestic violence and other forms of education and social change were required. in raising awareness of the issues faced by violence against women are directly related As soon as a few refuges were established, children experiencing domestic violence to a patriarchal system that accepts and they came together and supported each and gaining the recognition for children as promotes an unequal power relationship other in the various campaigns for funding, clients in their own right in SAAP services. between women and men. housing and better services for women and When the feminist movement started to children escaping domestic violence. Homelessness and DV address domestic violence in the 70’s, there Refuges started sharing ideas, resources Much has changed for the better in the last were no crisis services to support women and practices. 30 years. The community is more aware of and children escaping domestic violence. the issues and more supportive. Domestic Then in 1975, after extensive campaigning, violence is not relegated to the private sphere In a 1975 survey of women who had the Whitlam government provided limited anymore and a number of services and experienced domestic violence found the funding to 7 refuges in NSW, some of which agencies support women and children major reason for staying, cited by 89% of were already operating. Receiving experiencing or escaping violence. the women interviewed, was that “they had government funding was about more than Legislation and policies have also changed nowhere to go”. receiving money, it was about gaining to better protect women and children and political recognition that domestic violence As domestic violence was considered a improve access to income support, housing, was not a “private” matter. The funding private matter and there was a strong stigma legal services etc. received, however was inadequate and attached to women who separated. It was uncertain. However, much remains to be done. almost impossible for women to find alternative accommodation. Women were In 1976/77, Commonwealth funding was The link of domestic violence with women not eligible for emergency housing as long cut back to 90% of operating costs and and children’s homelessness is strong and

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness as the matrimonial house existed. The 75% of capital costs. The Wran NSW persistent. Domestic violence has remained the single most prevalent reason for women affordable housing. They may have to children experiencing violence and assisting and children accessing homeless assistance relocate away from their area and lose the them in remaining safely in the home through services since the beginning of data support of their family and friends. Women an integrated response model, there are collection in 1996.2 may find that they are further from their place concerns that this may be seen as a cheaper of employment and children may have to model and promoted as the standard to Thousand of women and children are still change schools. Often leaving their toys, made homeless each year because of aim for in all cases, rather than a choice for clothes and other personal possession domestic violence, many cannot be a particular group of women. For some accommodated in refuges and many more behind. women, remaining in the home may never be a safe option, or an outcome they wish do not access services. This instability and sometimes long term to pursue. In 2004-05 in Australia 13,970 women homelessness brought about by domestic clients and 19,910 accompanying children violence prevents women and children from A comprehensive domestic violence strategy were accommodated at least once by DV healing and rebuilding their lives. This is that ensures the safety and stability of services.3 A similar number could not be stark contrast to the perpetrator who often women and children escaping domestic accommodated because refuges were remains in the family home and faces few violence is long overdue. Such a strategy full. In 2003-04, around one in two consequences. must provide an integrated response that 4 will assist women to remain or return safely women and around two in three Historically, it has always been women and 5 to their home or access safe and affordable accompanying children were turned away children who were expected to leave the housing to make a new home. ■ from services for women and children family home for their safety. In more recent escaping domestic violence. years, the option to enable women and Footnotes Unlike people homeless for other reasons, children to stay safely in the home has been 1. The New South Wales Women’s Refuge women and children escaping domestic explored, with pilot projects being run in the Movement Orientation Manual April 2006 update violence have a home but it is not safe for ACT, Tasmania and New South Wales. The them to remain or return to. Crisis Payment, provided by Centrelink, has 2. Australian Institute of Health & Welfare, also been extended to women experiencing SAAP National Data Collection Agency (NDCA), 2006 When women leave the violence, they often domestic violence, who choose to remain lose their home, support networks and 3. NDCA, 2006 in their home (effective from January 2007). community. Even after the crisis is over, 4. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare The WRM is supportive of these new women and children may find themselves 2005, Female SAAP Clients Escaping developments; indeed the Movement played in an unsafe or unstable housing situation, Domestic and Family Violence 2003-04, a significant role in the extension of the Crisis Bulletin, Issue 30 with many having to move more than once 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 Payment. 5. Julie Oberin, Pamela Foster and Cara to escape from the perpetrator of violence, Kirkwood 2005, Making Children Count: or simply due to financial issues and the While philosophically agreeing with the move Children, Violence, Homelessness and the 29 difficulty of accessing and maintaining towards increasing options for women and Law, published by WESNET nte onr:Histories of Homelessness Another Country: AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Talking like a Toora Woman: the herstory of a single women’s service

Elena Rosenman The flip side of 'the personal is political' single women, nothing could have prepared brought with it a responsibility for women to them for what happened when the Shelter n the 8th of August 1983, Toora Single challenge the patriarchy in their own lives. opened. Of the women who used the service OWomen’s Shelter opened its doors. It As Australian feminist historian Marilyn Lake in the first months of operation, half were was the first single women’s refuge in elucidated, if women were going to change living with mental illness, a similar number Canberra and joined a very small clutch of their lives, they needed somewhere to go to had attempted suicide. More than half were such services across Australia. While do it. struggling with drug and alcohol dependency single women’s services developed a and many were dealing with multiple issues Change began with oneself. complex understanding of women’s such as alcohol and depression. Toora’s Hundreds of women took the advice homelessness and the related issues of commitment to the women excluded by other and walked out of marriages, mental illness and chemical dependency, women’s refuges lead to an important political changed their names, formed new they came up against some resistance, both analysis of women’s chemical dependency households and began their lives within the women’s refuge movement and and women’s experiences in the mental anew . . . To ease the passage of within the bureaucratic structures that women wanting to leave their marital health system. For Jacqui Pearce, an early administered their funding. The needs of home but with nowhere to go, collective member, it was one of the defining single women had only ever been 'halfway houses' or 'women's elements of the service. conceptualised as a problem for women’s shelters' were set up by women who refuges. Addressing the issue of domestic Single women who were ‘skid row sometimes volunteered their own violence often seem to come at the expense homeless women’ were at the houses for the cause.2 of a broader examination of women’s bottom of the pile in terms of being homelessness. In 1974, Elsie — the first women’s refuge in someone who anyone might care Australia was established in Sydney. The about, they didn’t rate a mention, 30 Consciousness raising was one of the same year Canberra women’s liberation barely rated any services. And single defining features of second wave feminism began to work towards a similar service women are a tricky bunch because of in the 1970s. Across Australia women and the Canberra Women’s Refuge (CWR) the level of drug use and mental formed groups where they interrogated their opened in March 1975. It was only a matter health and all the rest of it. So we own lives and relationships with men — of months before the small house was really started analysing our stats and fathers, lovers, brothers and friends. These overflowing. Gill Shaw, a young woman seeing this many women have groups exposed the extent of violence in working at the refuge recalled, ‘our policy at experienced sexual abuse in their life, women's lives, highlighted how many that time was that we didn’t refuse anybody there must be some links here. women had lived through sexual assault in entry . . . so the place was absolutely packed their childhood homes and went on to Toora’s opening in the mid-1980s coincided to the rafters.’ Another worker, Pat Walker, manage home lives dictated by domestic with the national move to deinstitutionalise remembered nights where up to fifty women violence, exploitation and tyranny. mental health services. Revelations of serious and children were bunked over the house, Consciousness raising gave birth to one of systemic abuse and neglect in large in beds, on couches and on the floor. In the most enduring tenets of the feminist institutions and recognition of the dubious addition to women and children fleeing violent movement, 'the personal is political.' 'The therapeutic benefit provided by these homes, the refuge attracted women without personal is political' forever altered the institutions drove a move to shut them down. children. They included young women meaning of the word political and expanded While there was widespread community escaping incest and alcohol and drug affected the feminist analysis of the patriarchy, power support for deinstitutionalisation, the promise homes, many who were often using alcohol and women's oppression. Aired in of an accompanying shift of funding to and drugs themselves, and older women consciousness raising groups experiences community based services fell far short of often with pronounced mental illness, woman had been deeply ashamed of, or need. The inevitable result was large numbers chemical dependency or both. Housing single saw as personal shortcomings — rape, of people with serious mental health issues women together with women and children incest, and domestic violence — started to were released from mental health institutions became increasingly problematic and the take on a much less personal aspect. What with inadequate or non-existent avenues of CWR collective eventually decided it would women had suffered in isolation began to support. While large institutions were no longer accommodate single women. As take on an unmistakable pattern. The undoubtedly of limited value when it came Liz O’Brien, a member at the time recalled, personal lives of women told the women’s to care or treatment, they at least provided ‘it couldn’t be done. The demand was just movement as much about the patriarchy as food and shelter to people who were often so overwhelming that there had to be priority did the formal inequalities. Sexism was more long estranged from friends or family support. for women with children… we just couldn’t than formal inequality; it was ingrained in The closure of Kenmore in Goulburn and the house everybody.’ The decision to exclude cultural and social ideas about women and Watson Hostel in Canberra had a serious single women at the CWR was preceded femininity. It was manifest in every interaction impact on homelessness services in the ACT. by the same decision at Elsie and other and relationship between men and Refuges were left to deal with the fall out of women’s refuges across Australia. women. It pervaded workplaces, social failed deinstitutionalisation policies, as women institutions and snaked its way through the The Toora Single Women’s Shelter collective that had been confined to institutions were personal lives of women. As women was formed in 1981. The three founding suddenly on the streets with no support. shared their experiences of families, sex and members — Pat Walker, Gill Shaw and Di None were accompanied by children so the violence the movement developed an Lucas had all been involved with the CWR domestic violence refuges were not an option analysis of women's sexuality and a and were driven by the realisation that the for them. For the most part, they ended up trenchant critique of women's traditional role needs of many single women were complex, at Toora and the collective witnessed firsthand in the family, 'identifying the isolated nuclear desperate and unmet. Toora Single Women’s the damage inflicted by long-term family household as the central institution Shelter opened in 1983 after two years of institutionalisation. Bridie Doyle, an early of patriarchy and a primary site of women's intensive effort. While the Toora Collective Toora worker, described the women who 1

Another Country: Histories of Homelessness oppression.' knew the CWR had trouble accommodating came to Toora from institutions as having ‘a learned hopelessness and helplessness. homelessness. There was a feeling that single wanted to protect their vulnerable They had no taught capacity to initiate women’s needs had been, and continued to children from the damaged behaviour change, to stand up for their rights and they be, ignored by the original refuges, perhaps of some of these women. This had no understating of their ‘madness’ as a because they were too complicated and tension reoccurs throughout the natural response to trauma.’ demanded too much time and attention. In history of refuges, and has led to a addition, the support single women’s services separation of the issues domestic The Toora Collective observed that an offered did not seem to be adequately violence and homelessness which is enormous percentage of the women in the appreciated within the refuge movement. problematic.3 mental health system were survivors of severe Lyn Morgain, an early Toora collective sexual assault, neglect and other abuse. The member, recalled that as a single women’s The issues homeless single women brought collective began to link past traumas to the service, voicing issues beyond domestic with them — chemical dependency, self- symptoms of mental illness women were violence within the broader women’s refuge harm and PTSD, posed a challenge for the now experiencing. Originally, the diagnosis movement required continued effort: women’s movement and were less palatable of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to the wider community. As Annie Kenney, had been limited to male war veterans, but The whole single women versus the a refuge for young single women in Tasmania, the 1980s brought the realisation that women domestic violence women’s sector observed, the stigma experienced by women who had survived domestic violence or sexual was huge before Toora was in the who used the refuge, ‘stems from the belief assault were suffering identical symptoms. women’s refuge movement. For the that homelessness and unemployment are The Toora collective believed behaviour whole 1980s through mid 90s that the fault of the individual, rather than that of previously seen as madness should be was the defining issue … We were the political, social and economic policies reclassified as a reasonable and predictable on about addiction we were also very of the time. 4 The drug and alcohol response to trauma. The construction of staunch advocates around the rights dependency and ‘madness’ experienced by women as mentally ill served to direct and needs of women without children women at Toora were also outside the or without children in their care. It attention to the behaviour of women and so common conception of domestic violence. was a huge point of political obscured and invalidated the original trauma. On the surface, such things lacked the clear difference, because the refuge The Toora collective realised the force of dynamic of perpetrator and victim inherent movement nationally as a whole was patriarchy went far beyond immediate in domestic violence and could be seen as very much focused on domestic physical and emotional violence; the silencing things that women actively chose or fell victim violence and we always saw of women was systemic. to because of personal weakness. The more ourselves as the counter voice. We the Toora collective examined the issues that The decade after Elsie’s opening had seen had years, and years, and years of affected women’s homelessness, the more 19,Volume · PARITY Issue 10 · November 2006 the rapid expansion of the women’s refuge going to women’s refuge it seemed they were addressing elements of movement, as more than 150 women’s conferences and being the radical patriarchy more complex than the traditional 31 refuges opened throughout Australia. Over element that was putting the different feminist narrative of domestic violence. The time, awareness of domestic violence had view. Histories of Homelessness Another Country: spread and the existence of women’s refuges collective would testify that no woman chose had become more accepted by governments The exclusion of single women, particularly homelessness in the true sense of choice. and the wider community. The advent of a those with stories of chemical dependency, For the women who managed chemical permanent funding program in the early mental illness and institutionalisation in the dependency and mental illness the route 1980s gave women’s refuges the most women’s sector meant the connection back to patriarchal violence or trauma was financial certainty they had yet experienced between the lives of these women and the there, it was just more convoluted and not and they became an integral part of Australia’s vulnerability of women and children as immediately visible. Single women’s social services system. Though feminists had immediately escaping domestic violence was services began to clear that path. to fight to get domestic violence on the lost. In her history of domestic violence This is an edited extract of Talking like a Toora national agenda, community attitudes did refuges, Ludo McFerran commented, Woman: the herstory of Toora Women Inc. shift significantly in the decades following The fact that the longer term published 2004. To order a copy please the establishment of the original women’s homeless women had probably contact Toora Women Inc. 02 6122 7000 refuges. Services for single women enjoyed themselves once been victims of or [email protected] less support than domestic violence services family or domestic violence, that this within the women’s refuge movement itself. had resulted in their homelessness, Footnotes Indeed, the needs of single women had and that they may have had their 1 Pringle, R, “Family, kith and kin,” Oxford only ever been conceptualised as a problem own children at one time was Australian Feminism: A Companion, p. 98. for women’s refuges. Their understanding of obscured. Those women for whom 2 Lake, M, Getting Equal, p. 229. women’s homelessness was limited to being homeless was a new 3 McFerran, L, A History of Domestic women immediately escaping domestic experience perceived the others as Violence, Refuges and Exclusion in Australia. violence. Julia Ryan was involved with the different. Perhaps they saw in them establishment of the CWR and admitted their own future, and did not like the 4 Robinson, K, Annie Kenney Young more long-term homelessness was not Women’s Refuge, Tasmania, Youth Services vision. Perhaps it was simply they Documentation Project, p 2. something the collective had considered. The refuge ‘was very family oriented. We honestly thought the problem was domestic violence, wives and children. Homeless single women were not in our universe.’ In 1982, the National Women’s Refuge Conference report identified the ‘problem’ of single women in women’s refuges as a distraction from the task of addressing domestic violence. Single women were, ‘creating particular problems for the refuges which were initially established primarily to assist women and their children who were the victims of domestic violence.’ Services for single women started to feel that the focus on domestic violence within the women’s refuge movement failed to consider the political analysis they had formed of AIY·Vlm 9 Issue 10 · November 2006 PARITY · Volume 19, Opinion

Heather Holst* of how a historical perspective can have been thinking about how help to understand Ihomelessness policy and studying history a seemingly relate to each other. This is a big question intractable current for me as I work in both areas and want to issue. The personal understand more clearly the ways that each accounts of several can inform the other. I certainly feel that contributors also better homelessness policy is made when argue for the the history is considered. benefits of living through a bit of The English historian John Tosh recently history and how this gave a public lecture in Melbourne in has deepened their which he put forward his idea that historical understanding of perspectives need to be more widely used homelessness. insight into patterns best avoided. in social policy development because an Unfortunately, the most frequent use of Tracing an issue back historically can reveal understanding of the historical aspects of history in public policy is an after-the-event a lot about the underlying concepts we an issue can open up present day options. analysis of its failures, even its disasters. unwittingly use. Several articles in this edition Among many other activities, Tosh This certainly can be helpful and do this tracing and argue that other concepts contributes to a British website called History necessary but it can be a bit of a ‘cheap and Policy (www.historyandpolicy.org), are actually more helpful in understanding what is happening and what can be done. shot’ taken from the safe distance of non- which specifically aims to offer historical involvement. perspectives that will assist present day What if homelessness is conceived in terms policy making. The articles in this Parity of the person’s legal rights rather than in As Shurlee Swain, the Australian historian certainly confirm this belief in the utility of terms of welfare? What if long-grass people who has written widely about child welfare history and offer helpful insights for the are understood as traditional land owners observes, there is a tendency for each new 32 making of homelessness policy. rather than as drifters and substance generation of social workers and policy abusers? Why has housing in South makers to feel they will revolutionise practice As Nell Musgrove’s article shows us, a Australia come to be understood as a to prevent power imbalances, coercion, complex pattern of events can be better welfare issue rather than an economic issue? understanding the ‘client’ as deviant from seen with the benefit of a historical view. These alternative concepts open up new middle class values and all the other Once the discriminatory thinking of the policy options, several of them already multitude of sins of which social work can Camp Pell social workers and the general proving much more effective than the former stand accused. It is advisable to know this public of that period becomes clear in this understandings. Notice also how many of pattern and to realise that we are probably way, the reader may well ask themselves these articles show the tremendous negative not exceptions. what they are doing now in their own

OPINION power — the sweeping of certain people practice that might be seen this way now to the margins — that occurs when the We see academics from several social or in future. It is hard to see patterns when concept of personal deficiency forms the sciences around the advisory table now, you are standing in the picture, but this is basis for understanding an issue. but it is still rare to see a historian deliberately one way to catch a glimpse. invited or historical aspects explicitly An added dimension to using historical considered when making decisions. Even when you are not a central player, it analysis is that of movement, of the direction can be very hard to understand what is that the trajectory of events is taking and * Heather has worked for many years in the happening without the historical from which you might discern an intervention homelessness sector and is now completing background. Bill Day’s article about the that may alter a course of events. At least a PhD in History at the University of Darwin town camps is a compelling example understanding the history may provide an Melbourne.

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