By Jed Lanyon
Healesville’s Stephen Bevington was nominated as one of Victoria’s Australian of the Year candidates for 2021 as the founder and managing director of Community Housing Limited.
Community Housing Limited (CHL) is a not-for-profit housing organisation that delivers affordable housing to those in need, including providing rental housing at subsidised market rent to those who are most vulnerable in our community.
Mr Bevington said he was “surprised” to be nominated for the award and to make it to the semi-final stage in Victoria.
“I was very privileged really to be nominated and I was very happy to have gotten this far in the process.”
Mr Bevington grew up in England and spent 15 years sleeping rough, couch surfing and living in insecure accommodation. His experience with homelessness inspired a lifelong dedication to creating affordable housing for those in need.
26 years ago, Mr Bevington migrated to Australia with his family and founded CHL.
From a one-man operation in Melbourne, CHL has grown to have a presence across Australia, East Timor, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, India, Rwanda and Papua New Guinea.
Under Mr Bevingotn’s leadership, CHL has become the largest not-for-profit social and affordable housing provider in Australia, managing more than 11,000 properties nationwide.
Mr Bevington shared his experience of sleeping rough in England.
“I suppose I had lived in all the different varieties of homelessness as it is described,” he said. “In one time I’ve lived on the streets, another time squatting in vacant houses and derelict houses. Other times I would be sleeping on couches or floors at the homes of others.”
Mr Bevington said this came as a result of few private rental properties being available in a time of recession in the 70’s.
“All of a sudden without warning all of the kinds of places you needed to live in as a young man dried up. I started living in share houses or a room in a studio apartment.
Mr Bevingotn said he then moved to squatting in abandoned houses until the government had passed criminal trespass laws restricting his ability to find shelter. He would then spend periods sleeping on the streets, in parks and even graveyards.
“It’s not an easy life, you’d try to keep clean and presentable, but you don’t have much to carry around with you.
“I had a young family in the 80’s and I decided to move to Australia to give them a life as I couldn’t see one emerging and it worked out pretty well.
He said his experience sleeping rough helped him in helping others.
“I think unless you have lived for long periods either on the street or in insecure housing, it’s very difficult to imagine how much it impacts on your ability to live and develop your life.
“Living on the streets day by day, there’s no way you can engage in studying or employment.
“In insecure housing it becomes difficult to engage in a career or engage in study and you don’t know where you’ll be in three months time.
“Having an address is an important part of your identity. You need it for documents or a license and for anything to prove you exist really.
“It’s like if you don’t have an address, you can’t have an official identity. It limits your capacity to really live a stable life at any time and have any financial independence and to be a contributor to society.
“This is what a lot of people don’t realise that the ability to have a home is a critical aspect in your life.”
Mr Bevington said the ability to find secure housing has only worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In this health crisis, if you don’t have a home, how are you going to isolate yourself from others or work from home? It’s been difficult for some people to keep out of harm’s way when there is a pandemic going on.”
Over the last 27 years, CHL has grown to employ 400 staff members who aim to house vulnerable Australians from all walks of life, including the elderly, those with disability, domestic violence survivors, people living with mental illness and Indigenous Australians.
CHL now provides affordable housing across every state in Australia through more than 11,000 properties.
“I am looking forward to the day when someone becomes Australian of the Year coming from the community housing sector because it’ll increase the profile of that sector within Australia,” Mr Bevington said.
