Plight of our homeless hits home

By Kath Gannaway
HUNDREDS of people will sleep rough in a few weeks as part of the Cancer Council’s Yarra Ranges Relay for Life.
So why were there so few willing to rough it for the homeless.
Yarra Ranges Mayor Tim Heenan’s Sleep Out Under the Stars in Melba Park was well publicised but only 30 or so people took up the challenge.
“Nobody wants to sleep out on a Saturday night,” someone said. But wasn’t that the point – there are hundreds of people in the shire who don’t have a choice.
It’s about connecting.
Everyone’s been touched by cancer, but most people don’t know anyone who is “really” homeless.
Well, meet Katie (not her real name).
She’s 26 and homeless.
She’s lonely. She’s sad. She feels hopeless, and helpless. She’s a heroin addict. She’s vulnerable. She’s not nice to be around a lot of the time. She cries and, she makes other people cry. She’s been in jail. She wants a chance for a normal life.
Being addicted and homeless, means being looked down on, judged, degraded, filled with self-loathing, frightened and alone.
Katie, is hard to get out of your head once you’ve met her.
Her addiction dictates her life. But she can’t beat it. Not yet, anyway.
Not having a permanent base – a home, – makes it too hard.
“I don’t know how to live my life without drugs,” she says.
She says her father was and still is addicted to drugs.
“He gave me my first drugs when I was 12. Before I realised it I had a habit,” Katie said.
“People think you can just click your fingers and beat the addiction. It’s not that easy.”
She’s tried and failed in the past and right now, couch hopping, not knowing from one day to the next where she will be, or if she will have a roof over her head, she can’t face reality, or drag up what it takes to have another try.
“You can’t even plan for the next day. How can you think abut the next week or month?” she asks.
“You can go and get an assessment (for rehabilitation) but it could be three weeks before you get in anywhere and by they you give up.”
Is she lonely?
She can’t speak without risking tears.
“It’s just so hard to wake up and not even want to be here. I wake up some days and just don’t want to be alive any more and I hate that,” Katie said.
“Yes, I’m lonely.” Tears roll down her cheeks.
Katie doesn’t want pity.
“I know it’s up to me,” she says, “but when you’re only 12 ….”
Most people would think that’s a fair call. She does want help. And she’s grateful for a gesture which she says has made her feel that someone cares.
“I honestly feel like the mayor and the Shire of Yarra Ranges and Anchor have balls for doing this; no one else would.
“To see people actually caring about the homeless, not degrading us, or looking down on us, makes you feel like you’re worth something.”
Next year, Cr Heenan has said he hopes more people will connect with the plight of the homeless and show their support.
If you think you don’t know anyone who is really homeless, think of Katie.