Darwin’s itinerant ‘problem’: The issue no-one seems able to solve

THE ‘itinerant problem’ has been hotly debated throughout Darwin but one voice missing is that of those who are seeking help themselves. JASON WALLS finds out why people are living on the streets of Darwin

Long grasser Debrah Puruntatamuri attends the soup kitchen at St Vincent in Stuart Park Picture: KERI MEGELUS

NOWHERE on Earth is immune to the issue of homelessness but equally there is nowhere in Australia where the plight of those with without a place to call home is more polarising than the Northern Territory.

Traders and shoppers have locked horns with city councils and Territory governments over what to do about the “itinerant problem” for as long as anyone can remember.

“The itinerant behaviour will ruin us.”

“Every morning we have to hose outside — pee or s**t or food.”

“The tourists and some local people think we’re big racist arseholes, but they don’t understand the implication it is having on us as business owners.”

Despite the constant spotlight on the issue and the best efforts of many, little has changed over the decades, including the labels placed on those at the centre of the debate.

Some are recognisable throughout the nation — “the homeless”, “beggars”.

Filmmaker Aref Alfahom stops in after losing all of his money and possessions Picture: KERI MEGELUS

Others have a uniquely Territory ring to them, tinged by the complex interaction between our two cultures, one which measures its ties to the land in generations and another with spiritual and cultural connections orders of magnitude more ancient — “itinerants”, “humbuggers”.

But in a quiet courtyard tucked away off the highway in Stuart Park, the volunteers at the St Vincent de Paul Society’s drop-in centre have another word for them.

“‘Companions’ — that’s the word we use to describe our clients,” St Vinnies NT president Fay Gurr says.

While many of those who pass through the gates of the centre looking for a hot meal, a shower or a change of clothes could fairly be described as “itinerants”, Ms Gurr says one of the biggest misconceptions people have about homelessness is that it “only applies to one part of the community”.

“Many of our companions … are Aboriginal and they are not here permanently, they are here for a range of reasons, but we also have people who are new arrivals here to Australia, who are immigrants, who are refugees, who have come from war-torn places as well as a range of visitors from (the) south who find themselves up here,” she says.

“They might have had the promise of a job, the job doesn’t eventuate, they can’t get Centrelink payments, they don’t have money to go home and they are so scared. They kind of come here a bit scared, thinking ‘is this me?’ and they find a welcome, a respect.”

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THE diversity of the centre’s clientele is evident when the NT News visits the Westralia St site, where a down on his luck construction worker and an aspiring Palestinian filmmaker break bread with others in need of a hand up — black and white.

Sausage, bacon and vegetable stew with rice is served Picture: KERI MEGELUS

Aref Alfahoum made his way from Brisbane with little else but the clothes on his back and a dream of securing a government grant for a film about ancient Jordan.

“I was travelling at Airlie Beach and I misplaced my items, I lost my laptop, my mobile phone, a bit of cash,” he says.

“It was my fault (but) by the time I arrived here with Greyhound I was like stranded, out of money.”

Similarly, long time local Stephen Price is not homeless but with construction work hard to come by he relies on St Vinnies to put food in his belly while between jobs.

“I’ve lived in Darwin for 20 years and worked on and off and the funds are running a bit low at the moment so I come here to get a nice feed,” he says.

The two men are examples of those “on the borderline” of homelessness, who Ms Gurr says make up many of the more than 1000 clients the centre serves each month and who have been left out of the conversation around poverty in the NT.

“More frequent conversation with government (is needed) to say ‘well look, let’s plan forward’, there will be people who are homeless and there will be people who are on the edge of homelessness,” she says. “There are many people who are struggling very much in Darwin who are not homeless but they may be one week’s pay away from being homeless so there’s quite lot of people we see who are very much on the borderline.

“Let’s not be reactive, let’s not wait and then government funding happens and then we respond.”

The St Vinnies centre is the only one of its kind in Darwin and Ms Gurr says one area in particular which is overlooked in the debate is Palmerston, where another service is badly needed.

“A centre like this in Palmerston would be an extraordinary help to the people there who are on the edge of homelessness,” she says.

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AT another table in the dry season sun are long grassers Debrah Puruntatamuri and Daniel Harrison, who are both regulars at the centre while staying in Darwin.

Chef Graeme Logie cooks and serves to those in need Picture: KERI MEGELUS

Ms Puruntatamuri is in town from Melville Island for a holiday and to have a drink with family and has come for a feed and to get medical treatment for a wound on her knee.

She’s been long grassing for the past few months but is heading back to Garden Point to see her four grandchildren this weekend.

“I always come (here) in the morning, have brekky and a shower, look after my dressing as well, (see) the nurses and doctors,” she says.

For Mr Harrison, the trip to Darwin is an opportunity to get away from “trouble” back home in Katherine and Vinnies provides a place to rest up after being moved on from the long grass.

“We can’t make a fire anywhere around the city or in parks, that’s when police come and (hassle) us and want to lock us up all the time,” he says.

“It’s good for a lot of people, makes a big difference.”

There’s no escaping the fact many of those sleeping out in Darwin are indigenous, often staying in town from remote communities, and sometimes drinking to excess and causing trouble.

But Ms Gurr says what is lost in the conversation around the “itinerant problem” is that Aboriginal people have called the Northern Territory home for thousands of years and have a right to travel freely.

“There’s such a strong perception around the homeless, the itinerants, the Aboriginal visitors as a burden on everyone but they are here for the most part for very genuine reasons and they’re actually helping their families and supporting their families but it doesn’t look like that when you see people together,” she says.

“In the wet season we tend to find people who come up, particularly for medical (reasons), or families who come to spend time with their relatives and can’t go back because of the flooding.

“They may end up being here for months, they don’t want to be here for months but they can’t get home so it gets really frustrating sometimes for those people because they really want to go back but they can’t get there.”

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ULITIMATELY, Ms Gurr says a better dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous Territorians, which doesn’t “demonise the homeless”, is crucial to breaking down the barriers that make the “itinerant problem” so intractable and incomprehensible.

“Maybe we need to encourage more of our neighbours and visitors and the general public to know that when you see someone walking around town, sometimes they can be loud, sometimes they can yell out but there is support for them in the community,” she says.

“I think as a community (we should) at least acknowledge that they’re not always living on the street or in the long grass because they are hopeless or they don’t know how to live their life — they do.

“For many they come from remote places where living outside is a safe and good thing to do and all we can do is to understand that.

“Of course we don’t accept outrageous behaviour here, we don’t accept violent behaviours here as part of the community, but we just keep trying to say there are better ways of living and this (centre) is one.”