I had the privilege recently of accompanying two outreach workers from the Salvation Army and two from Hobart City Council on a sobering walk around Hobart on a quiet Monday evening.
The group meets every Monday at the end of the Elizabeth Street mall, alongside a medical van providing GP services to people who find themselves homeless or who have difficulty accessing medical assistance. People can receive free vaccinations, medicines and examinations without bookings and without judgement.
Loui’s van, run by St Vincent de Paul, arrives at 8.30 with donated meals.
Salvation Army Street to Home team members Don McCrae and Annie Carr had contacted people they knew might be in need of medical check-ups and reminded them of the availability of the GP, provided by Moreton Group Medical Services and funded by Primary Health Tasmania and the federal government.
Slipped into conversations about life, sailing, football and whatever else came up, Don and Annie checked that people, all known to them, had a place to sleep for the night, although sadly the number of available emergency beds falls short of the need for them.
Together with the two council representatives, Rob McDougall and Jonathon Tyrell, we walked for three hours, visiting people in the places they had set up beds for the night – concrete alcoves out of the wind and sheltered entrances to banks. Some would travel to bush squats further afield.
Without exception, the people Annie and Don made contact with were delighted to see them, sometimes calling out from a distance at the sight of the high-vis Salvation Army jackets. There were hugs and fist pumps and an exchange of news and of needs. There were jokes and laughter.
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Don McCrae tells me of recent successes within their program, with eight people successfully housed in the previous month. In Burnie, the Safe Space program has housed six people over the same period.
According to the 2016 Australian census, 1,622 Tasmanians were experiencing homelessness, and 8 per cent of these were sleeping rough. McRae suggests that this number has increased with street homelessness peaking at 358 across the greater Hobart area in 2020.
According to Shelter Tasmania’s CEO, Pattie Chugg, the need for more long-term housing solutions is critical. “Solutions include an urgent need for accessible and affordable housing with appropriate supports so people can maintain their tenancies,” Chugg says.
As part of the walk, Don McRae and Annie Carr drop off donuts – donated by Circle of Life in Liverpool Street – to the Safe Space night accommodation site in the Hobart City Council's Youth Arts and Recreation Centre building in Collins Street. Originally a six-month pilot project funded through the state government, community donations and Hobart City Mission, with support from The Salvation Army, the program now has funding through to 2023.
“It was hard work to get the program up and running, but it has proven a success in its ability to assist people who have been largely estranged from service provision to re-engage with service providers again. It’s more than just finding people shelter for the night,” says McRae, who has been working in the community sector for 30 years and advocated for the program.
The Hobart Safe Space program accommodates 20 people a night on a first-come, first-served basis, and it has turned lives around. The workers here have an obvious rapport with their clients, and the results in terms of improved mental health, support with substance use and access to housing services have been demonstrated. According to McRae, it has “not only assisted people, in some cases it has saved lives. That’s how important this work really is.
“For people to access the services they require quite literally from off the couch at the shelter suggests that not everyone works well with the usual nine-to-five service provision methodology. Many people respond better with a caring and more assertive outreach model that sees people in a space where they feel more comfortable and less judged,” he says.
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Spending an evening with this frontline team was heart-warming and heartbreaking in equal measure. Annie Carr tells me she loves her job, the outreach work in particular, and it is clear that she does. The regard, friendship and care shown by the various teams to the people in need was genuine and the close working relationships and collaboration between the organisations evident. But there is clearly a long way to go.
Ideally there would be more accommodation sites like the Safe Space night program, and they would run 24 hours, McRae says. And there is the need for more community housing, with places like Bethlehem House and Mountain View, both in Hobart, often at capacity.
According to Shelter Tasmania, 57 per cent of the state’s homeless are in the south, mainly in Hobart. Many of these people find temporary solutions such as couch surfing or sleeping in cars, so their homelessness is hidden from view.
For those on the street, the outreach work of groups like the Salvos is crucial. Having seen the way faces light up at the sight of the canary-yellow Salvo jackets, it is clear the frontline work is highly valued: the conversation and friendship, the connection to services, the care. It is a side of Hobart that is right under our noses, but which many of us miss.
Joining the Salvos team for an evening, I was so rugged up in thermals and winter clothes that when I got home my family told me I looked like I’d put on weight. But I got to come home. I got to sleep in a warm bed.
The Salvation Army’s Covid-adapted Digital Doorknock Red Shield appeal runs this winter. The Salvos sleepout is in August.
Dr Katherine Johnson is a science writer and novelist based in Tasmania. She has published in The Conversation, Good Weekend (Sydney Morning Herald) and CSIRO’s ECOS magazine. Her fourth novel, Paris Savages, was released in the UK in July. Visit www.katherineJohnsonauthor.com and connect on social media via @KJohnsonauthor.