‘You can’t catch homelessness’: the core issues being ignored in Toowoomba’s homelessness crisis
As households across Toowoomba turn up their heaters, some of our community sleep huddled in tents in the park, or wrapped up in old blankets on icy cold concrete footpaths. As we enter the hardest time of the year for rough sleepers, many of these people just want to be seen and heard.
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Since he was just 10, Dylan has been learning to survive on the streets.
More often than not, the 19-year-old would find himself desperately sifting through garbage bins in order to find his next meal.
“I’d eat burgers from people’s leftover dinners, I didn’t give a f — how old it was, it was food and I was hungry,” he said.
He lives in hope that one day he will be able to find permanent accommodation.
But he says those prospects are grim.
“I’ve been on the waiting list for the past three years, I’m too young to go to the winter shelter and I’m too old for the youth shelter,” he said.
“I have two kids who are with their mum, and I wouldn’t bring them near this experience because I don’t want them to go through the same things I’ve gone through.
“I hope to get off the street but that’s hope, all you can do is hope.”
Dylan, and the people who surround him on the streets of Toowoomba, are the faces of the city’s growing homeless epidemic.
He is one of 878 residents without a home according to Darling Downs Health, and one of 22,395 across the state.
As the epidemic grows, the more visible it has become.
Every morning, residents like Gregory, Robert and Gordon wake up in an ice-cold tent in a park on the outskirts of the city’s CBD.
Gregory found himself homeless after battling drug addiction for the better part of a decade.
“I started not because I wanted to get high, but because I was a tractor driver 13 weeks 24 hours a day,” he said.
“I threw that farmer’s job in and I’ve never worked since, because of the drugs.
“I’m blessed that I’ve got my Mum and Dad and brother watching over me because without them I’d be in jail or dead.”
Gordon, who said he had spent time in prison, said he had found himself on the streets following his release.
“Being in prison can be a lot easier. You get somewhere to sleep, three meals a day, but I’d rather be outside,” he said.
“The hardest part has been finding somewhere to stay, I don’t have much family support. I just try to keep to myself and don’t ask for much from anyone.”
Gordon is one of 53,000 people who are on a waitlist for social housing, but he has not received an update since the start of the year.
Taking a sip of coffee to stay warm during the cold winter months, he said more needed to be done to help the city’s homeless find a place to live.
“I feel like people look down on people who are homeless, it doesn’t make you feel real good but you just have to keep going,” he said.
“I’d like to see more people help out instead of putting us down, it’s not our fault we don’t have anywhere to stay, if I had a home I wouldn’t have to live like this.
“I want to give housing a good kick in the butt and tell them that we belong.”
Another former prisoner, Robert, shared the same problems with finding a home after leaving jail.
His cousin Wade regularly visits to share a yarn; something he would like more people to do.
“I think more needs to be done from a government perspective, they need to take ownership of why people are in this situation and they need to look at the broader picture,” Wade said.
“Homelessness is just part of the issue, anything that will break down a family or a man or a woman like ice or domestic violence.
“Come sit down, have a yarn, you can’t catch homelessness.”
Homelessness disproportionately impacts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia and they make up one in five rough sleepers across the country.
Aboriginal Family Law Services program manager Charlie Rowe said there was a long list of factors that needed to be addressed to fix the homelessness crisis, including mental health, addiction, incarceration, domestic violence, and family breakdowns.
“Everybody is a human being, and everybody deserves a warm home,” he said.
“We need to get together and try to work out the solution because it’s too sad seeing people sleep rough.
“All I know when I’m working with people is that they’re in front of me because they want support.”
Mr Rowe said even once people found accommodation, they needed support to hold on to it.
“If we can get our people to look after their mental health, the addiction sort of disappears because we are giving them tools to cope,” he said.
Thankfully, a group of dedicated volunteers are committed to keeping the homeless population nourished.
Every morning, rough sleepers can grab a bite to eat and a coffee, have a warm shower, and wash their clothes at Toowoomba Homeless Outreach.
Damien Gleeson said he saw the struggles of rough sleepers daily and had run the outreach program since last September.
To support the people on Toowoomba’s streets, Mr Gleeson said they needed more than just a roof over their heads.
“Mental health issues are big. What we are finding is that even if people do get accommodation, they don’t know how to manage it and then they lose their accommodation,” he said.
“Many of them feel like they can’t get ahead, they try and they fall into bad behaviours because of the people around them.”
Mr Gleeson said the situation was only going to get more dire.
“Those who are in positions of making decisions really could do more to help the homeless out here because people are struggling with mental health issues and financial issues.”
Toowoomba Homeless Outreach takes financial donations, and accepts donated clothing.
Housing and Homelessness support:
Basement Soup Kitchen - https://baseservices.com.au/
Toowoomba Winter Shelter
Tony’s Community Kitchen - https://www.tonyscommunity.com.au/
Civic Assist - https://civicassist.org.au/
Yellow Bridge Toowoomba - https://yellowbridgeqld.com.au/
Protea Place - https://www.proteaplace.org.au/
YWCA - https://www.ywca.org.au/
Department of Housing and public works - https://www.housing.qld.gov.au/
Toowoomba Housing hub - https://footprintscommunity.org.au/services/toowoomba-housing-hub/
Mental and physical health:
Adapt Mentoring - https://adaptmentor.com/
Momentum Mental health - https://momentummentalhealth.com.au/
Homelessness health outreach team - https://www.ddwmphn.com.au/services-library/homelessness-health-outreach-team
One Bridge - https://onebridge.com.au/clinics-open-to-public-1
Drug and Alcohol addiction:
Lives Lived Well - https://www.liveslivedwell.org.au/
Alcohol and Other Drugs Service - https://adis.health.qld.gov.au/service-providers/alcohol-and-other-drugs-service-aods-toowoomba
Aboriginal and Torres Strait services:
Aboriginal Family Legal services Queensland - https://www.aflssq.org.au/
Carbal Medical services - https://carbal.com.au/
Goolburri - https://goolburri.org.au/
Other support organisations:
Salvation Army - https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/
St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland - https://www.vinnies.org.au/qld
Domestic Violence Action Centre - https://dvac.org.au/
Lifeline Darling Downs and South West - https://www.lifelinedarlingdowns.org.au/
Australian Red Cross - https://www.redcross.org.au/
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