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ABC News
ABC News
National

Australia's homeless hidden in plain sight

Lee Anthony on the mattress he slept on under a Sydney expressway before securing a social housing flat.  (ABC News: Harriet Tatham)

Inside a thicket. The underbelly of an inner-city expressway. In bushland beside a Gold Coast freeway. 

We talk to Australians without a home about where they bed down each night — and how they came to be there. 

'It's not supposed to happen'

For the first four months of this year, Lee Anthony slept in the underbelly of an inner-city Sydney expressway. 

His mattress, propped each morning against a concrete pillar, had instructions written on it to stop council workers binning it. 

"A homeless person sleeps on this every night so please don't remove," he wrote.

The message Lee Anthony left on his matress for council rubbish collectors. (ABC News: Harriet Tatham)

It was not the first time the 58-year-old had slept on the street.

"It's just so confronting. It's not supposed to happen," he says.

Mr Anthony was working in IT six years ago when his mental health began to decline.

He put his possessions into storage, signed up to a public pool for somewhere to shower and spent days in the library learning a new programming language.

Each night he covered his mattress in plastic, blew up his travel pillow, and tried to sleep.

Lee Anthony's first night in his new home after four months on the street. (ABC News: Harriet Tatham)

Just as Sydney's temperatures dropped to single digits, he got a break.

Last month the NSW Department of Communities and Justice gave him a one-bedroom apartment in the Waterloo public housing towers.

"That, to me, is literally like winning the lottery," he says. 

"I can get my clothes and dress for interviews … and grab my laptop and apply for jobs — so it just fundamentally changes what's within your possibilities."

'You wouldn't know they were homeless'

James couldn't find a home after he had a relationship breakdown during COVID. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)

James* clears just enough undergrowth to pitch a tent.

It's these discreet green spaces on Melbourne's outskirts he turns to each night, hidden from dog-walkers and late-night joggers.

"As a general rule of thumb, you look for places that have 24-hour accessibility," he explains.

James is a former academic who went through a relationship breakdown through COVID. When the lockdown lifted, he couldn't find anywhere to live.

"I looked at everything from hostels to studio apartments to share houses, I even looked at renting a caravan," he says.

"But before I could get to inspections they were always gone."

James sets up an overnight camp in a Melbourne park.  (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)

He, like so many other homeless people he meets, are what he calls "ordinary" Australians hit by sudden hardship, squeezed out of the housing market, eking out private corners in public spaces. 

"They had normal lives, some were industry professionals, some ran small businesses, they were normal people you'd normally meet in the street," he says.

"You wouldn't know they were homeless unless you actually saw them in the shelter and they told you they were homeless, because they were very well put together."

James is a former academic.  (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)

James's camps are never permanent. Each night he pitches somewhere new.

Each day he goes back to the city to homeless services for basics, and the library for power and privacy. 

'Some days I am embarrassed'

Katie Blackman has lived by a Gold Coast highway for more than a month.  (ABC News: Steve Keen)

Katie Blackman is a Ballina flood refugee.

Her tent is hidden in bushland beside a Gold Coast highway, where thousands of cars pass each day.

The 49-year-old has lived there for more than a month. 

Katie Blackman has set up a tent in bushland, including a pot plant garden.  (ABC News: Danielle Mahe)

She has solar-powered lights, a pot-plant garden, and recycles containers for some cash.

"Being on the street can take your dignity away, your self-worth, your self-respect, your pride," Katie says.

"Some days I am embarrassed about it."

Katie Blackman is a Ballina flood refugee. (ABC News: Danielle Mahe)

The disability pensioner can't afford to rent again after the floods washed her home away.

"Sometimes I feel like I am treated like a mongrel dog. I ask people not to judge, don't judge straight up. There is a reason why most of us are in this situation," she says.

"Losing my rental home in the floods was a slap in the face and it makes you realise what you take of granted.

"I just wish a fairy godmother would wave her wand at me and make it better."

'It's not Australia'

Ron and Julie Ann now live an hour inland from Bundaberg, but still in their van. (ABC News: Audrey Courty)

Pensioner Ron Hughes lives in a campervan on a property in rural Queensland, where he works for the landowner in exchange for a fixed address. 

Before that, he and his partner Julie Ann Tucker, 68, lived in a Bundaberg tourist park.

There, the 71-year-old became a mediator between his fellow homeless and local agencies, and says he's helped about 20 people find a home in the past year.

He had a T-shirt specially made: "Ron, Mover and Shaker, the Mayor of Hopeful Park" — although the park's actual name is Hinkler Lions Tourist Park.

Stephen Delgarto also sometimes stays in the tourist park.  (ABC News: Audrey Courty)

The couple, now living an hour inland in Biggenden, feel despondent and exhausted, but know there are others worse off.

"It's not Australia. It's very, very sad to see women and children and families on the street," Mr Hughes says.

"It's very hard, and I feel so sad that it's making me nearly ashamed to be an Australian."

This new stop in Biggenden is only temporary, as they sit on the social housing waiting list.

"They have to stop putting people out on the street," Ms Tucker says.

"But there is just nowhere to go so at least the council should leave people camping on public grounds, instead of kicking them out".

What's behind our housing crisis?

A welfare boost in the May budget has not been enough to dent the rapidly rising number of Australians without a home.

The number of people accessing homeless services each month has jumped eight per cent over the past four years – double the growth rate of new houses built each year, according to the 2022 Australian Homelessness Monitor

Australia's adults are the richest in the world, according to the 2020 Global Wealth Report.  (ABC News: Clarissa Thorpe)

The rate of homelessness varies drastically, depending where you are in Australia.

In South Australia, it's been fairly constant over four years. In Tasmania, homelessness is up 24 per cent, and there's been a 22 per cent increase in Queensland.

And the number of people accessing homeless services has grown at more than double the rate in regional Australia, up 13 per cent compared to six per cent in capital cities.

Tents, like these in Brisbane, are popping up in public parks.  (ABC News: Dean Catton)

Australian Council of Social Services CEO Cassandra Goldie says the financial deprivation, and anguish it brings, is worse than she has ever seen.

But she says you can't just blame global conditions for our housing crisis. 

"The severe cost-of-living crisis is affecting people on so many levels," Dr Goldie says. 

"It is a very easy story to suggest that somehow this is the way things are and we are in tough times and there are global conditions.

"That is simply incorrect, we are here today in 2023 because of bad policy decisions and failures over the last 30 years."

Homeless people in Brisbane have been sleeping under Go Between Bridge. (ABC News: Lexy Hamilton-Smith)

What is being done about it?

State and territory governments have announced and implemented a series of measures and the federal government has pledged to build a million new homes in five years under its Housing Accord.

In December, it introduced legislation to set up a Housing Australia Future Fund – a $10-billion fund promising 30,000 social and affordable homes.

But it's getting pushback from other parties.

The Greens say Labor's plan won't do enough for renters, and the Coalition has criticised the government's decision to allow a record 1.5 million migrants to arrive in Australia while there's a housing crisis.

*Name changed to protect privacy

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