Year 11 VCAL Youth Homelessness City Tour

Our Year 11 VCAL class recently attended the Salvos School Tours program. The purpose of the program is to heighten the awareness and understanding of homelessness in Australia and to encourage students to empathise with those who are experiencing it.

The program run by The Salvation Army has two components. The first involves running practical lessons in their Education Centre exploring a range of issues, including what causes homelessness, the effect it has on the individuals and the community. The students are then taken on a 60-minute guided city walking tour, highlighting the areas where the homeless “sleep rough”.

Our presenter, Lisa started her workshop by defining homelessness: “Not having access to secure, long term and safe accommodation”. She then outlined the causes, statistics, facts and myths related to homelessness. A practical group activity had students imagining they had suddenly become homeless and had to consider how they would spend their $30 a day Centrelink payment. Students had to choose between sleeping in a backpacker’s hostel ($22), a rooming house ($28) or sleeping rough ($0). In the discussion that followed, the groups had to justify their decisions.

Students learnt that:

there are 116 437 homeless people in Australia
the majority of these people are male, under the age of 25
there are 300 rough sleepers in the CBD
The main cause of homelessness is domestic violence followed by lack of affordable housing
60% of homeless people have no addictions or mental health issues, that is why intervention programs are so important
there are currently 82,000 people in Victoria waiting for public housing and the list is growing by 500 a month

The city tour was an eye-opener. We visited a number of locations where people ‘sleep rough’ and Lisa told us real stories about real people at each location. She discussed the challenges the homeless faced on a nightly basis and how fear from violent attacks is uppermost on their minds.

Most places (such as a laneway tucked behind the top end restaurants of Bourke Street) we looked at were squalid, grimy, and smelt of urine. The vulnerability and helplessness of the homeless were made abundantly clear to our students. During the tour, Lisa humanized the homeless by telling us what caused their homelessness and how the Salvation Army helped them in their time of utter despair.

Ms Vicki Handris

VCAL Co-Ordinator