Sleeping on trains now last resort for homeless battling winter
It’s 9.15pm and as temperatures plummet into the single digits at Central train station, like many Sydneysiders Jeffries Collier is thinking about going to bed.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
IT’S 9.15pm and as temperatures plummet into the single digits at Central train station, like many Sydneysiders Jeffries Collier is thinking about going to bed.
The 57-year-old decides when to turn in, however, not based on how tired he is but on the train timetable.
MORE: SYDNEY’S HIDDEN HOMELESS
MORE: STOP USING ROUGH SLEEPERS TO ADVERTISE CHARITIES
Mr Collier has been living on the streets for about eight years, and with city shelters at full capacity and boarding houses notoriously violent, the train has become his last refuge from the elements.
His two favourite choices are the 9.26pm train to Newcastle or the 11.28pm to Kiama. Both run for more than 2½ hours each way and the Kiama train has the added advantage of stopping for several hours when it terminates before returning to the city.
Recently Mr Collier’s bag was stolen, but generally the worst he gets is a few raised eyebrows from commuters who are growing to expect rough sleepers as a regular fixture on their morning rides.
“I get about five hours’ sleep,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The only people I get hassled by are the police. They don’t like the homeless around the station or anywhere.”
The Daily Telegraph visited Central at night last week to speak to some of the dozens of homeless people who are resorting to using trains as a moving shelter at night.
It comes amid claims that Family and Community Services (FACS) and other government agencies are teaming up to try and move homeless people on from Central — but with no clear plans about where they should go.
Government documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal FACS has been telling major charities, including the St Vincent de Paul Society and The Exodus Foundation, to stop setting up food vans at Central Station for the needy.
Homeless people have also been banned from sleeping on the top floor there, with transport guards reportedly forcing them to move on.
The push has been slammed by charity workers and the homeless themselves as a bid to get them “out of sight and out of mind”.
The documents reveal that hundreds of homeless are taking shelter in Central every week.
In one week during November last year FACS made contact with 250 homeless people there and while 100 were provided with temporary accommodation the rest were turfed onto the street.
A copy of the minutes from a meeting held between FACS, Transport for NSW, police and major charities at the end of last year — leaked to The Daily Telegraph — claimed the agencies were performing “intensive outreach” at Central Station.
“Police and Transport are concerned about the anti-social behaviour and crime that has been increasing at Central Station over the last few months,” the document states.
“The environment at Central Station is not conducive to safe positive engagements with people who need to access food services.”
THE CHARITY WORKER
But Will Hawes, who runs a food van at Central five nights a week through his charity Will2Live, said he was angry FACS had attempted to kick him out.
“They were suggesting I go to a park in Waterloo. Nobody would know I was there, the need is here,” Mr Hawes, who serves about 100 meals each night, said.
“Out of sight, out of mind is exactly what it is. They just want to move the problem from one area to another.”
THE HOMELESS
Andrew, 37, said he does whatever he can to keep clean so he’s not identified by police or transport staff.
“It’s a crackdown on homeless people. I try to keep myself clean and tell everyone else to keep clean so they don’t know I’m homeless. They don’t want us at the stations,” he said.
All of his possessions are kept in two green bags. Sometimes to help him get to sleep on the train he listens to a Billy Joel CD using headphones he puts into a large CD player. “Everything I have has been given to me by my friends,” he said.
Peter, who has been living on the streets for six years and now sleeps on the late night Kiama train, said he was on the public housing waiting list.
“I applied so many times and after six months they take me off the list and I apply again. It’s a waste of time,” he said.
THE GOVERNMENT
A spokesman for FACS Minister Pru Goward said the government had housed more than 240 rough sleepers as a result of targeted assertive outreach in the inner city since March last year. “We are investing a further $1 billion in homelessness services over four years which includes $61 million in new funding over the next four years to implement the Homelessness Strategy,” he said.
A FACS spokeswoman said they had asked some food services to move to community housing areas “to offer assistance to rough sleepers who have been housed as a result of the targeted assertive outreach”.
“FACS provides temporary accommodation to any person in NSW at imminent risk or experiencing homelessness. In 2016-17, FACS provided this support to more than 24,800 clients,” she said.
A police spokeswoman said: “NSW Police conducts regular patrols across the transport network to ensure the safety of the community and continue to work closely with several organisations that assist people who are homeless.”
Labor leader Luke Foley said he had written to Premier Gladys Berejiklian last month proposing a joint parliamentary inquiry into homelessness but was rebuffed.
Mr Foley said he first discussed the idea with former Australian governor-general Sir William Deane.
“There’s a crisis of homelessness in our city and state right now,” he told reporters in Auburn this morning.
“Ms Berejiklian has rejected my request for a joint initiative in this matter, one suggested by Sir William Dean, but I’m going to keep talking about the issue.
“I don’t want people to be out of site and out of mind and I just reflect that the reason that many homeless people are bedding down at railway stations is there’s just inadequate shelter for them, inadequate crisis accommodation and the state needs to do a whole lot better there.”
Mr Foley said he thought the homelessness issue “ought to be above combative partisan politics” but promised to keep working on solutions.
“Ms Berejiklian has chosen not to take up my offer but I’m going to continue to talk about homelessness, put forward policy solutions because we’re a prosperous society,” he said.
“The government boast about it’s budget surplus so we have to do a whole lot more than we’re doing at the moment as a state here.”