‘I feel loved’: St Mary’s House of Welcome brings Christmas to Melburnians sleeping rough

Raymond Baker knows what it’s like to wake up on Christmas morning in a car or on the street or on a friend’s couch.

He’s been homeless for long stints since his mother died in 1998. “I was living in my car for quite a while, mainly the car park at the Vic markets because there is a lot of light and people coming and going, so it’s safer.”

“People say, ‘You haven’t got nowhere to go, you can come here’,” says Raymond Baker. “But I just don’t want to admit to it, it’s hard.”Credit: Joe Armao

Next year Baker is moving into public housing – a heart attack in March finally moved him up the priority list – but he says Christmas is always a difficult time for the homeless.

“You feel embarrassed. People say, ‘You haven’t got nowhere to go, you can come here’, and things like that. But I just don’t want to admit to it, it’s hard.”

This year Baker has been persuaded to celebrate Christmas at St Mary’s House of Welcome, an oasis in Fitzroy for people experiencing homelessness since 1960.

On Christmas Day, St Mary’s provides everything from a three-course lunch and presents to things most people take for granted, like a hot shower and fresh underwear. There’s even entertainment provided by the in-house choir, the Mood Swingers.

“I feel loved here, I actually do,” says Paul Pivec, who plans to go to the lunch. Pivec, who now has housing, used to sleep under bridges and in underground car parks and wash himself in the Convention Centre bathrooms.

“I have no family,” he says. “The food, the companions, all the helpers, that’s what I like about it here.”

Christmas triggers many emotions for people experiencing homelessness, because most have endured a lot of trauma over the years, says St Mary’s chief executive Robina Bradley.

“It just brings back a lot of the dysfunction in families or memories or connections that they don’t have, and that’s why we try very hard to create a Christmas day for our community, so they can have some time off the street with us.”

Food prep at St Mary’s House of Welcome.Credit: Justin McManus

But the cost-of-living crisis has taken its toll on the charity, which relies on donations and philanthropic grants to fund 40 per cent of its meal services and activities.

Bradley says less rescued food is being donated, and other humanitarian crises coupled with cost-of-living pressures have impacted the organisation’s fundraising efforts.

“We do a gingerbread-house kit fundraising campaign, and it’s been a much harder sell this year,” she says.

“It’s particularly that middle- to lower-income bracket – you can see the donations just drop.”

One in 67 Victorians received assistance from homelessness services in 2022-23, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report released this month – higher than the national rate of one in 95.

Financial difficulties, domestic and family violence, and the housing crisis were cited as the top three reasons. Forty-one per cent of Victorians assisted by homelessness services were homeless when they first presented.

Homelessness services say inadequate social housing, along with cost-of-living pressures and the tight rental market, is resulting in people falling through the cracks.

The Council to Homeless Persons says the data shows the number of working Victorians who were homeless or at risk of homelessness who sought help in 2022-23 increased by 1594 to 12,770.

Deborah Henry (far right), founder of From Us 2 You, with volunteers.

“Previously, employment was a significant protective factor against homelessness,” said the organisation’s chief executive, Deborah Di Natale.

“But soaring rents and the lack of social housing have eroded that buffer for many people. And if it’s difficult to keep a roof over your head while working full- or part-time, it’s virtually impossible to do so on a very low or no income.”

The Council to Homeless Persons says the number of Victorians sleeping rough who sought assistance also rose by 2636 to 12,613.

Deborah Henry runs the self-funded organisation From Us 2 You, which serves meals to the homeless twice a week at Batman Park in the CBD. She also distributes hampers of donated household goods from her Epping home.

Odette Zavos has been coming to St Mary’s House of Welcome for years to access support services and participate in art classes.Credit: Joe Armao

“There are people losing jobs, and they can’t afford to buy presents for their families – we’ve actually got presents here for them as well,” Henry says. “It’s worse than last year.”

Odette Zavos, who lives in a rooming house in Fitzroy, has been coming to St Mary’s for years to access support services and participate in art classes.

She says Christmas can be a lonely time. “Life in general is lonely when you get old, that’s just the way it is. Everyone’s paired off like Noah’s Ark. I spend a lot of time on my own and I get a bit tetchy and angry and depressed and anxious, and how many more words can I say?”

St Mary’s anticipates about 60 people will come to lunch on Christmas Day.

“It’s amazing they’re doing that, it’s really, really good,” Zavos says.

“Not everyone gets on with the family, especially if they’ve been homeless and stuff they might be embarrassed. Everyone has their idiosyncrasies and whether they’ll go home, and it’ll be a good time? It isn’t always.”

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