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Soon after he left foster care, Phil found himself living on the streets of Melbourne, where he says he would sleep on traffic islands as they were brightly lit and felt safer.
More than 116,000 people are homeless on any given night in Australia and that number is rising all the time. As the country marks Homelessness Week, we tell some of their stories.
Melbourne, Australia – Few people would consider sleeping in a public toilet, on a park bench or on a traffic island “lucky”.
But that is how 50-year-old Phil, who asked that we only use his first name, considers the decade he spent living homeless on the streets of Melbourne…
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The state of Victoria has been criticised for not only having the greatest housing shortage in Australia but also for spending the least to tackle the problem. Recently, however, the government made moves to rectify the issue, holding a parliamentary inquiry into homelessness within the state and announcing increased funding to build new public homes.
Fiona Patten, who chaired the inquiry, said the process relied largely on submissions from people who had experienced homelessness, all of whom said “give us a home.”
But in addition to examining housing provision, Patten said the inquiry also asked, “how could we have helped that person not to become homeless?”
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Read the full article on Al Jazeera’s website.
This article is part of a series supported by the City of Yarra. Read more from this series:
Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’: ‘Heroin use hid the pain’
Australia’s ‘invisible’ homeless women
Australia’s homeless children: ‘We’re easily manipulated’
Australia’s ‘revolving door’ of prison and homelessness
Can ‘safe injecting sites’ help Australia’s homeless?
‘Nothing more humiliating’: The Australians turning to begging
