Features
Housing Crisis
Meet Katrina and her daughters. Every day hundreds of "ordinary" families like this find themselves on the street. Jo Knowsley investigates the shocking truth behind our hidden housing crisis.
Every weekday, soon after the sun splits through the tatty curtains of her room, Katrina slides out of her futon bed and begins a routine played out in homes across Australia. Rousing Cheyenne, 4, and Gracie, 2, the Canberra mother doles out breakfast cereal to her two daughters, irons their clothes and makes sure they have brushed their teeth and washed. Finally, before boarding the bus to day care, Katrina, 27, glides a brush through Cheyenne's long blonde hair and smooths it into a ponytail.
But behind this family's everyday routine lies a heartbreaking secret. All the morning's activities have been played out in one cluttered room, where toys compete for space with toiletries, towels and Katrina's work clothes. Everything they own is stuffed into a dressing table and two narrow hanging spaces. Breakfast is made and teeth are brushed in a communal kitchen and bathroom shared with four other women and their families.
Like 100,000 people across Australia – a staggering 10,000 of them children younger than 12 – Katrina and her daughters are homeless. They're living in an emergency refuge run by the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Now, after years of neglect, this growing social problem has appeared on official radars. In January, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd commissioned the government's first White Paper on the issue and, during last year's election campaign, he committed $150 million over five years to build new crisis accommodation. "It's something which you can either push to one side and sweep under the carpet, or you can say, 'Actually, this is just dead wrong, we need to do something about it,'" stated Mr Rudd. "We don't believe it is something which a country as wealthy as ours in the 21st century can just ignore."
Katrina hadn't ignored it; she just never imagined she'd be a statistic. Just a few years ago, she was living with her glazier fiancé and the girls in a home they were planning to buy. The couple separated when her partner developed a drinking and gambling problem, and Katrina insisted the house be sold.
She rented in the private sector and stayed afloat working as a waitress. But when her ex turned up at her home and threatened violence, Katrina was evicted. She could neither find, nor afford, new accommodation. "The biggest sense is one of failure," admits Katrina. "I feel so much as if I've failed the children. Christmas was particularly lonely as we can't have any visitors."Katrina's despair is palpable. "I just want my children to have a normal life, but I can't give them that at the moment. There is another mother here at the refuge with a little girl and we tried to get a house we could rent together; we both work and we could afford it. But the rents are so high and the landlords are picky. Nobody would have us. So many landlords don't want to rent to people with children."
By day, Katrina is a cheerful waitress.
At night, when the girls are tucked into their bunk beds, she cries. "I worry about my little girls and how disruptive it is to their routine," she concedes. "I worry about everything, actually. The girls can't have their friends over and when my little girl turned two we had to find a friend's house where she could have her party. I am very grateful to St Vincent de Paul. I know I'm fortunate to have a roof over my head."
Katrina's plight isn't unique. A report released last December by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that 75 per cent of couples with children who request crisis accommodation are turned away each day. Nationally in 2005-06, an average of 328 people a day made requests for help; on average, 219 of these were turned away due to overdemand.
The problem is twofold: Australia's economic boom has meant rents have soared, putting them out of reach of even many middle-class families; at the same time, traditional low-cost housing options such as rooming houses and caravan parks have disappeared, swallowed up by developers hungry for the profits to be made building trendy new apartments. On top of this, argue welfare groups, the government has seriously underfunded public housing for decades.
The result is a brutal bottleneck with too many needy families and too few properties to cater for them. In one week before Christmas, Hanover, a charity that provides emergency accommodation for the homeless in Victoria, was approached by 300 people desperate for a roof over their heads. It was able to directly accommodate just nine of them. The rest were referred to other organisations or budget motels.
Find out more about the struggles facing homeless families in Australia in the April issue of marie claire.
Every weekday, soon after the sun splits through the tatty curtains of her room, Katrina slides out of her futon bed and begins a routine played out in homes across Australia. Rousing Cheyenne, 4, and Gracie, 2, the Canberra mother doles out breakfast cereal to her two daughters, irons their clothes and makes sure they have brushed their teeth and washed. Finally, before boarding the bus to day care, Katrina, 27, glides a brush through Cheyenne's long blonde hair and smooths it into a ponytail.
But behind this family's everyday routine lies a heartbreaking secret. All the morning's activities have been played out in one cluttered room, where toys compete for space with toiletries, towels and Katrina's work clothes. Everything they own is stuffed into a dressing table and two narrow hanging spaces. Breakfast is made and teeth are brushed in a communal kitchen and bathroom shared with four other women and their families.
Like 100,000 people across Australia – a staggering 10,000 of them children younger than 12 – Katrina and her daughters are homeless. They're living in an emergency refuge run by the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Now, after years of neglect, this growing social problem has appeared on official radars. In January, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd commissioned the government's first White Paper on the issue and, during last year's election campaign, he committed $150 million over five years to build new crisis accommodation. "It's something which you can either push to one side and sweep under the carpet, or you can say, 'Actually, this is just dead wrong, we need to do something about it,'" stated Mr Rudd. "We don't believe it is something which a country as wealthy as ours in the 21st century can just ignore."
Katrina hadn't ignored it; she just never imagined she'd be a statistic. Just a few years ago, she was living with her glazier fiancé and the girls in a home they were planning to buy. The couple separated when her partner developed a drinking and gambling problem, and Katrina insisted the house be sold.
She rented in the private sector and stayed afloat working as a waitress. But when her ex turned up at her home and threatened violence, Katrina was evicted. She could neither find, nor afford, new accommodation. "The biggest sense is one of failure," admits Katrina. "I feel so much as if I've failed the children. Christmas was particularly lonely as we can't have any visitors."Katrina's despair is palpable. "I just want my children to have a normal life, but I can't give them that at the moment. There is another mother here at the refuge with a little girl and we tried to get a house we could rent together; we both work and we could afford it. But the rents are so high and the landlords are picky. Nobody would have us. So many landlords don't want to rent to people with children."
By day, Katrina is a cheerful waitress.
At night, when the girls are tucked into their bunk beds, she cries. "I worry about my little girls and how disruptive it is to their routine," she concedes. "I worry about everything, actually. The girls can't have their friends over and when my little girl turned two we had to find a friend's house where she could have her party. I am very grateful to St Vincent de Paul. I know I'm fortunate to have a roof over my head."
Katrina's plight isn't unique. A report released last December by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that 75 per cent of couples with children who request crisis accommodation are turned away each day. Nationally in 2005-06, an average of 328 people a day made requests for help; on average, 219 of these were turned away due to overdemand.
The problem is twofold: Australia's economic boom has meant rents have soared, putting them out of reach of even many middle-class families; at the same time, traditional low-cost housing options such as rooming houses and caravan parks have disappeared, swallowed up by developers hungry for the profits to be made building trendy new apartments. On top of this, argue welfare groups, the government has seriously underfunded public housing for decades.
The result is a brutal bottleneck with too many needy families and too few properties to cater for them. In one week before Christmas, Hanover, a charity that provides emergency accommodation for the homeless in Victoria, was approached by 300 people desperate for a roof over their heads. It was able to directly accommodate just nine of them. The rest were referred to other organisations or budget motels.
| HOW YOU CAN HELP We want Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to put the issue of homelessness firmly on the agenda at his Australia 2020 summit in April. Sign our petition and we'll forward your responses to Tanya Plibersek, Federal Minister For Housing. |
Find out more about the struggles facing homeless families in Australia in the April issue of marie claire.
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