Jenan Taylor
30 June 2023
People who have never been homeless before are seeking aid from temporary church shelters in outer Melbourne amid mounting hardship.
Yarra Valley and Sunbury churches in the Stable One winter shelter network say there has been an uptick in clients who have never experienced chronic homelessness before.
Stable One managing director Jenny Willetts said many of the new guests at the Yarra Valley winter shelter had struggled with a range of circumstances including relationship breakdowns, job loss and medical conditions.
Ms Willetts said those problems in combination with rising interest rates, rent and other living costs then pushed them into homelessness.
“We’re seeing people who can’t find anywhere to live because it’s not affordable. A couple came to us because they missed a payment and got evicted. Another person has a dog, and can’t afford accommodation. He can’t go to work because he can’t leave the dog in the car all day and sleep in a church at night,” she said.
Sunbury Winter Shelter coordinator Di Smale said there was a similar trend in her area.
Read more: Housing crisis forcing people to choose between their abusers and homelessness
Ms Smale said some guests reported going from relatively comfortable lives to couch surfing in a short time frame.
One person lost their house after a family member’s death left them unable to meet payments, she said.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the 2021 Census has shown that more than 122,000 people in Australia are without a safe place they call home on any given night.
It also showed that Victoria was the state with the second highest homelessness rate in the country.
Analysis from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare gelled with what the church shelters observed.
It found financial hardship, family and domestic violence, and the housing crisis were the top three reasons people sought homelessness assistance in the state.
But Ms Smale said it was too early to estimate what the volume of demand would be for the Sunbury shelter this winter.
Read more: More volunteers needed for annual winter homeless shelter
She said it supported between 20 and 28 people in 2022. But only between one and seven people had used the temporary accommodation service on the nights it operated since it opened on 1 June this year.
Ms Smale said current demand was patchy and that made it challenging in terms of volunteer availability and ability to meet the needs of some guests.
The Yarra Valley winter shelter was also experiencing low demand since it opened for the season, Ms Willetts said.
She said it was hard to gauge how many people would use the service because it was difficult to map the need in the outer areas.
“Where we are in the valley, there’s a lot of rough sleepers who camp out. You don’t see them because people are parking and sleeping in their cars in fairly bushy places. It’s not that they’re not here. It’s just that they’re not visible,” Ms Willetts said.
She believed there were plenty of hidden homeless needing help in area, and that many would head to inner Melbourne to access services instead.
But Ms Willetts said the numbers were irrelevant for Stable One’s shelter program.
“When you get 10 complex people in a room trying to get on with each other and stay overnight in that room, it can be challenging,” she said.
“We don’t mind small numbers and we’ve always said we’d do it for one person if that’s what was needed. It’s about the individual that’s in front of us and giving them more than just a roof over their head and letting them know, there are people that care about them.”
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