Winter exposes the cold, harsh reality of homelessness in Adelaide
BY ANTHONY CASTLE
I once lived on a street in the city. My home was older, with cracks in the walls, on the margins of the city blocks. Alongside were derelict buildings and old bars, men queuing along the curb at sunset, sleeping bags beneath the trees of the nearby parklands.
When winter came, the night air would creep in between the cracks. Sometimes, I would sit alone inside the old house at sunset, feeling the growing cold.
I lived with a friend in that house. Our street, on the southwest corner of Adelaide, also hosts a range of services and shelters. The homeless came to live there.
We would wake to find camps in our front garden and people drinking in our driveway. Once a week, we opened our door and offered a meal to anyone living on the street or simply alone. The house could grow cold, but it didn’t feel that way when we all gathered, offering what we had. No one’s problems were solved on those nights, but while we were together, it was warm.
I have been thinking about my old home more over the past few weeks. An elderly man died alone in his car on that street on a recent Sunday morning, parked outside one of the shelters. The man was in his 80s and had been sleeping rough for some time. The temperatures that week were near freezing at points. His name was Dominic.
The death has put a spotlight on the crises the country is currently facing. Spikes in the cost of living and a lack of housing have seen an increase in need across Australia, with more turning to services for support. Some services report that there has never been more demand.
Adelaide, in particular, has experienced the sharpest inflation in food prices of any capital city and has the lowest vacancy rates in Australia. Homelessness has increased in South Australia since 2016, with demand for services rising by 60 per cent over the last four years. Estimates suggest that almost 200 people are sleeping rough in the city, and campsites are growing in the parklands.
As the cost of living and lack of housing grows worse, many are at risk of experiencing homelessness for the first time. Foodbanks have reported serving two-income families. Experts warn of a new class of working homeless as families relocate to camping grounds and motels.
Now that winter has come, more and more people are in need. There are more living on the street, and while there remains no national data on homelessness deaths, we don’t know how many will die on the street, too.
We don’t know how many might die alone.
Winter freeze
I visit the street where I once lived and where Dominic died. The sun is setting, and the air is still mild. The old bars have become fashionable breweries, and apartment blocks now glow where the derelict buildings once stood. Shining cranes fill the city sky, but the men still queue on the curb in front of the shelters. There are more sleeping bags beneath trees.
“These problems won’t be solved in a night, but unless everyone works together, there won’t be any solutions.”
While much has changed on my old street, it hasn’t changed for the better – not for those in need, not for those on the margins. The cracks have opened wider in society, and more are feeling the cold. There isn’t an obvious solution to the crises we face. There isn’t the consensus or resources, and any responses announced would take years. We don’t know when this winter will end.
I walk past my old home, the site long fenced off, the front door now dark as the night falls. Resolving these crises will require cooperation from governments, businesses, not-for-profits, and everyone else. These problems won’t be solved in a night, but unless everyone works together, there won’t be any solutions.
Only when we gather together with what we have do we open doors for those on the margins and provide the warmth that so many need.
