By  a St Kilda Elder

Having lived in St Kilda south for over 40 years, I have had numerous encounters with the homeless, or as the more woke amongst us say, “people experiencing homelessness”. Some rather pleasant - like when Rebecca stopped me in the Woollies carpark and offered me a bundy and coke if I would give her a cigarette. It was 8am so she was on her own with the bundy, but we had a fag together and talked about her life- she had once had a car but had lost it. She didn’t mention drugs but admitted she loved her booze. She quite liked the Acland Street area and told me most locals were kind and generous.  Rebecca is probably in her late 30s, not unattractive and was articulate and easy to talk with, at least that day she was. Other times when I've greeted her by name, she has actually scared me. So there is clearly a mental health issue going on. Last week I saw her in the entry to the Coles arcade and asked her how she was coping with the cold and if she needed a warm jacket. She was a bit distracted but said she was ok.

My latest strategy with folk sitting outside the supermarkets asking for change, ( we probably cannot say begging ) is to ask if they are hungry or thirsty before I go in to shop, Then I can offer a juice or a serve of hot chicken on my way out. On occasion, in a fit of generosity or middle-class guilt, I have handed over $50. I stopped giving cash after I saw one large middle-aged man, sprawled in a doorway, throw the couple of $2 coins back at a lady who had deposited them on his hanky, screaming at her “that won’t even buy me a cuppa coffee!!” 

Today on the ramp to Woollies I met Dale, a young man who would once have been considered handsome. This morning though, he had sores on his face and his forehead was bleeding. When I inquired, he told me they had fallen on his face onto concrete. I asked whether he was hungry and handed him $10 saying he could choose what he wanted to eat and if I could ask him couple questions. He is a regular on the ramp and I asked whether he considered himself homeless. He told me he had no-one, no family, no home. He told me he uses ice and showed me a nasty looking sore on his arm. He said if he can get the money, he sometimes stays in hotels for about $100. I asked him about money, and he said he gets regular money from the State Trustees, put there by his mother. I presume she made this arrangement before she died, to ensure he didn’t blow the lot on ice. When I said - oh gosh, ice is a really bad drug, isn’t it? he smiled for the first time and said - nah, I love it… feels good. 

As we talked a bloke came down the ramp and handed Dale a small can of coke and a large bag of potato chips. He stuffed a handful in his mouth and almost immediately started coughing and gasping and muttered something about having been exposed to a gas leak down in Port Melbourne. The coughing fit continued, and I joked about me doing the Heimlich manoeuvre to help him. Then he turned nasty - telling me I was trying to make him talk while he was hungry and wanted to eat the chips. He was still coughing and blaming the gas leak and I suggested he have a sip of the drink. He got nastier and told me in no uncertain terms to  bugger off. As I left I urged him to buy something a bit healthier with the ten bucks. 

I feel over-whelming compassion for people sleeping rough but, what the hell can we do to alleviate this issue of people sleeping rough, begging outside shops and doing hard and dangerous drugs. According to the Security Guard at Acland Court, it used to be much worse some years ago. He said the gates to the court are locked at midnight, but he sees the occasional person in the doorways. The 'concrete garden’ at the end of Acland Street seems to attract groups of what might be called people 'without purpose'. Once I made biscuits and tried to hand them round to a few groups but had not many takers. 

Many residents do feel apprehension and fear having to step over sleeping bodies on the streets of Port Phillip. I understand that some areas have become like open air drug camps. In summer I guess that is. There is verbal abuse and even my acquaintance Rebecca has charged at me screaming. The harm minimisation approach does seem to have created another industry of despair. Is providing food and blankets and social workers and clothes washing service and turning a blind eye to hard drug use going to heal these people? Help them get out of the vicious cycle of drug use and homelessness and more drug use…? Will drug decriminalisation and a safe injecting room make Port Phillip proud and productive? 

I don’t know the answers - but homeless hotspots around the world are coming to the end of their progressive tethers. San Francisco residents are so sick of dodging human faeces on the sidewalks that they are reassessing their approach. They are wanting more prosecutions of the open use of hard drugs and petty crime like shoplifting. In Europe some countries require those seeking social benefits to attend drug or alcohol treatment centres or get help for mental illness. It was publicised in January this year that: “Port Phillip becomes the first Australian community to measurably reduce rough sleeping”. This was seen as a "key milestone on the path to reaching functional zero.” Data had been collated and stakeholders consulted, and money spent. I do wonder how much of our rates is spent on tackling these problems. And whether the drop in homeless numbers had a lot to do with Covid funds providing hotel accommodation. Still the challenge of too little affordable housing remains. 

I was quite excited to see a recent item on the ABC news site, about Noosa Council considering an application by a builder, Greg Phipps, to build dozens of tiny modular homes to provide affordable housing in Cooroy, which will be self-sustainable - meaning no bills for residents. Good onya Greg! A great idea. Now where on earth could Port Phillip place dozens of tiny homes for the needy? Oh I know - Elsternwick Park! We must already have some equity in that improvement project, having kicked in hundreds of thousands…