Apqsm LAB interview transcript homelessness topic Example 2016 PDF

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Research Question: What does it mean to be ‘homeless’? CODE S

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT – Andrew Denton interviewing Damo, Peachie and Eleanor on their experience of homelessness Andrew Denton: Damo, ask most people and they'll tell you a homeless person is a wino that hasn't had a bath for three years. Who are the homeless and how would I tell a homeless person? Damo: Oh I don't think you'd have much of a chance of, of kicking one really because you know, you have people that do the the circuit of the rooming houses and you know there is the, the quintessential bum on the street. And also you know there's, there's homeless families out there that you wouldn't see unless you know are creeping the soup kitchens of a night time and stuff like that, you know like whole families come in. And there's you know it, it's a big cross-section. You know I, I always say if you can't walk around in your kitchen half naked cooking dinner or something like that, well you really haven't got a home. You know if you're sharing with fifteen other blokes in a, in a rooming house and you know you really haven't got any privacy. You've always got someone knocking on your door for a cigarette or you know. So there's various ways of being homeless I guess. Yeah, and that's just a few of them. Andrew Denton: Can I congratulate you on being the first person on this show to ever use the phrase 'the quintessential bum in the street'. Well done. It's good to hear it. Peachie, homelessness is, is more than just being on the streets, isn't it? Peachie: Oh yeah definitely. I've, cause I've been homeless since I was a little kid and I've, I've lived in a lot of places, but like I'm in the place I'm living at now it's, it's an alright house, but I live with 2 other people Andrew Denton: Let's see how the three of you got to being homeless. I'll start with you Damo, you, you actually grew up in Brighton, a middle class upbringing, you had a some landscaping skills, and then when you were 28 your mum died and gave you an inheritance of 60,000 bucks, what did

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you do with it? Damo: Yes, well ah I started off with all the good intentions and I went on a little surfing trip myself and I got back from there and I met a girl, and she happened to be a heroin addict and like I say she showed me everything I needed to know about it, and I wasn't really feeling that good about myself and not having my mother, I was a real mummy's boy you know, I can, I enjoyed her company, and so when she died I was pretty shattered, and I fell off the rails very quickly and like I said, I met this heroin addict and started using it myself. Andrew Denton: Well you spent the better part of the next decade using heroin and low end crime. Damo: Yes. Andrew Denton: Was there a point where you realised that you were homeless, a homeless person? Damo: Oh I guess sleeping on the Frankston line up and down on the trains of a night time, I guess you'd feel pretty homeless then. And that was, that was like the worst situation. I've never slept under a bridge or stuff like that but yeah I didn't, I didn't know where my next meal or my next bed was coming for, but you know thank god for, there's a lot of charities out there that do good work in feeding us people I guess. Andrew Denton: You ended up in in Long Bay Prison in Sydney on a murder charge, how did that happen? Damo: Well like I was just a classic wrong place at the wrong time and, oh it was a very scary thing to see. I, I witnessed the whole thing and because I'd had a fallout with this person before they got stabbed, you know just about the whole rooming house got locked at once, but 18 months later they realised who, who'd actually done it. Andrew Denton: So you were in a room with this person when they were killed? Damo: Yeah, pretty much yeah. Andrew Denton: Pretty much? Damo: Yeah, it was.

Andrew Denton: You actually were. Damo: Yes I was. Andrew Denton: And you have by your own admission, you, you actually found the criminal world rather glamorous and you thought that the drug scene was pretty glamorous, but when you got into prison you found that really wasn't your scene, is that right? Damo: Well yeah they were, it was, it's something you can't describe, it's like they're not really the people that you, you know, read about in Chopper Reid books and, and you know like you know they're pretty low grade sort of people. You know, there's a lot of petty theft and, you know picking on young, young kids just coming in there. I was quite old for someone to be in there you know, I was like 35, 36 at the time and yeah, and it was it was, just wasn't, they weren't my sort of people you know. Like I grew up pretty middle class and I did have a fascination with all things crime and drugs and you know from, from reading a lot of true crime books and stuff like that, yeah. Andrew Denton: It's astonishing that Chopper Reid books can't be trusted, I'm just.. Damo: Oh Andrew Denton: ...I'm really struggling with the concept. Damo: I don't want him to think that I think... Andrew Denton: No don't worry, he's after me first, you'll be okay. Eleanor, only a few years ago you were in Adelaide, you had a home, you had a partner, you were studying to be at university, how did life unravel for you? Eleanor: Well I think, I'd like to think that it all started when I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, because I didn't really take that well. I'd had fairly good health all of my life, and it is after all a fatal disease in the end if nothing else gets you and there's no cure. And while I was still struggling with that I also became an apostle and I was studying at university, I was in my third year of social work and the pressure was getting on there as well. So to just relieve my pressure a bit, I started going to play the poker machines, very you know subtly in the beginning, just to get some rest and relief before going back home. And then it kind of just all happened. I had no idea that I had an addictive personality

in me. Andrew Denton: So your gambling addiction overtook you? Eleanor: Yes, it just overtook everything. I stopped going to uni, I stopped seeing my partner in the evenings basically. I was always out for going to play the pokies or to get money for to going to play the pokies and it all went really fast. I would think it took about six months from when I started to when I was completely hooked. Andrew Denton: As a result of that you walked out on your partner, your life, pretty much everything you knew, what was that first night on the street like for you? Eleanor: That was really difficult and it had a really comical start because for 20 minutes I sat on a bench looking for my house key before I realised that I didn't have a house to go to nor a house key. And when that, that kind of sank in, that was the shock then I started looking around. I mean there I was, I was over 50 years old, never been anywhere near that kind of a situation, where do you go, what do you do? I was lucky because I found this spot that looked dry and looked a bit out of people's way and I just basically bedded down there for that first night. Andrew Denton: It must have been terrifying? Eleanor: No, I'm actually, it is for many women, but not for me because I have made a decision very early in my life that I am not going to let anybody scare me at night. I love walking streets at night, I always have, and I've just decided that I will be safe, and if that's the way I have to go then that's the way I'll go and then I've just recently realised that I also have this snobbishness. I didn't want to feel quite as homeless as those who actually went and sought help. I felt like I was a bit snap better than them, I could deal with this myself, I wasn't that homeless. Andrew Denton: Right. Eleanor: Which is quite ridiculous now because if you're homeless you're homeless, there's no degrees about it. Andrew Denton: So you were slightly up yourself homeless person. Eleanor: Yes I was.

Andrew Denton: Peachie, you grew up in rural Victoria and you were thrown out of home at the age of 9, now is it true your mum basically gave you your stuff and said don't come back? Peachie: Yeah, in a sense, I didn't really get my stuff. Andrew Denton: But she told you don't come back? Peachie: Yeah. Andrew Denton: Nine years old. How on earth did you know what to do? Peachie: I didn't. I didn't have a clue. Andrew Denton: And what did you do? Peachie: Well then I, I knew you got food from Safeway. And I didn't have an income. I was living in a footy shed through the cricket season cause they didn't use the footy shed and I used to just go down to Safeway and start eating the food off the shelves. Andrew Denton: Off the shelves? Peachie: Yeah, just sit in there and mung out. Andrew Denton: How do you do that without someone catching you? Peachie: Well they did eventually. Andrew Denton: Yeah. Peachie: But yeah... Andrew Denton: It was trying to open the can of sardines was it? Peachie: Ha ha, yeah, no I used to go to the veggie aisle and just mung on the carrots and walk around, but like cause when footy season come in I had to leave that part and I went to the Mitchell River Bridge and I didn't agree with that, too much noise, too cold and too much mozzies. The Department of Human Services found me and they, they started putting me through houses and foster homes. Andrew Denton: Well, you spent til you were about 16, you spent your life in hostels as you said and you were usually the youngest one there, and as a result of that you copped

some pretty rough treatment didn't you? Peachie: Yeah, you could say I had a fair bit of it. Andrew Denton: What did you get? Peachie: Um, I got a cigar burn that's a bit bigger than a 20 cent coin on there, I got bottled in the face and just heaps and heaps and set on fire a few times, shot in the leg. Andrew Denton: Why? Peachie: Amusement I think. I never understood it, never had a clue. Andrew Denton: Did this sort of behaviour over the years start to change the sort of person you were? Peachie: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Started to change the way I thought about people. Like I never trust anyone any more or I didn't want to really know anyone any more. Andrew Denton: When you were sixteen when you were old enough, you got out of the hostel world and you went down to Melbourne where you've been for the last four years, how much of that time have you spent on the streets? Peachie: About probably 2 of it, maybe maybe a bit more. Andrew Denton: And and what's it like living rough on the streets? Peachie: Oh well well at the start I hated it, I didn't, oh cause I didn't like the cold, and you just like you you get used to it, it's like sleeping in a bed eventually. You just like you get used to crashing on the cement or pulling up something, so you just get used to it eventually and then when you do break out of it you lose your sense of like how to look after your own house. But like I suppose it doesn't take that long to get back, but you forget so many things about the house everything you need to do. Eleanor: Don't you find it hard though because you do everything in public, I thought that was the worst bit like you going to the public toilets, you brush your teeth, and wash yourself there and what have you. You eat in public, you do everything in public, yeah and I mean you have, can you imagine after a day's work you go home, you close your door you put your feet up, you can run around dressed like this or that, nobody cares, you never have that, you walk

around and you're always with other people, always in the public eye so to speak. You have no privacy and not that moment when you sit down and say, oh that was today. You lay down, you put your head down, and you think like hope nobody comes and bothers me at night now so I can sleep. Andrew Denton: Yeah. Damo how, when you're on the street, how do you hold yourself together, I mean it would be very easy I would think to fall apart? Damo: Well yeah you sort of you form relationships with other people who are basically, well in my case into the same poison as you right, and it'd be like you know, you'd always, you'd always team up with someone who you knew was getting paid that you knew where the good gear was and go out and get on it and then you'd reciprocate when it was your turn to get paid so. It was, it was like a vicious circle, like you never, never out of what you needed and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all junkies are really bad people, because they're not, but I have to think that way because I never want to go back there again. So I've got to hate the scene, I've got to hate the junkie on the nod you know, I've got to think, oh you're disgusting, because you know I'm only just one miserable night away from maybe picking it up again you know, it's as simple as that. Andrew Denton: Eleanor, is there a, you talked about everybody's looking at you when you're on the street, you have no home, there's nothing to constrain your life, is, is there a sense of meaninglessness to it all when you're wandering around? Eleanor: Yes there is, but you also have to keep yourself extremely organised because everything you own you have with you in a bag, or in my case a shopping trolley, and you have to know exactly where everything is so you don't have to empty every bag, every time you need something. So that keeps you busy for a long time. Then you have to kind of eat, mind your personal hygiene, wash your clothes, and for me I hang my life up on that I never let go of my personal hygiene or my appearance. I might have looked scruffy but I was always clean. Andrew Denton: You say that you pushed a trolley around, that's where all your belongings were. How do you decide what's important when? Eleanor: Well, I have to share a funny thing with you. When

I stood there, when I was about to lose the last last place I could call home, I thought do I take a bath towel or do I take a bathrobe and I took the bathrobe and that's one of the biggest mistake of my life. It takes far too much space and it's not very useful, it's almost impossible to ever get dry, unless it's summer time which it was not. So if you ever become homeless please take the bath towel. Andrew Denton: Oh this is great, we're getting home tips from the homeless. Eleanor: Yes. Andrew Denton: Now I assume that a vacuum cleaner is a no-no as well? Eleanor: No, absolutely you won't need one. Andrew Denton: Let's talk about the, let's talk about the positive bit, how you've turned your life around. I'll start with you Damo, you're, you're off heroin, have been for a few years Damo: Quite a few years now. Andrew Denton: Surfing's your new addiction. Damo: Yes. Andrew Denton: And where are you at with your life? Damo: Well, I'm in a really good place, I've got a fantastic job where I meet people all day and usually they're very kind to me, actually all the time they're really kind to me. Andrew Denton: And that job's selling 'The Big Issue' magazine. 'The Big Issue' magazine which all three of you sell has been set up for the homeless with profits to the homeless right? Damo: Yes. Andrew Denton: We'll get back to that in a second. Eleanor you want to be a social worker. Eleanor: Yep. Andrew Denton: And you're going to study to do that. Have you dealt with your addiction? Eleanor: I am still dealing with my addiction. I have come as

far as that I, for over a year now, have never spent money I shouldn't spend on the poker machines, as in instead of paying a bill or instead of buying something I need, or buying food or what have you. I always do all those things first, but it does happen sometimes, I have to be honest that I do have a relapse. Andrew Denton: Is that scary? Eleanor: No I feel like I, as time goes by, and as other things come into my life, the gambling addiction is kind of taking a back seat. So no I don't really get scared. And a lot of people who have gone through the process tell me don't beat yourself up when you fall because that won't do you any good. Just start again one day at a time. Andrew Denton: So where are you at in your plans to be a social worker? Eleanor: Well I had hoped to come into University this year but unfortunately when I left I forgot to defer, because my life was crashing, so that was basically last thing I thought about to go to the office and fill in the paper. Andrew Denton: Ah, the bureaucracy gets you every time doesn't it. Eleanor: Yes, so because of that they gave me six fails for the year, so my entrance score had dropped, so I didn't get in on my application and my support worker at 'The Big Issue' has now straightened everything out for me, and there is a small chance that I get intermediary intake, but otherwise next year in March definitely for my last year. Andrew Denton: What's the Big Issue, selling that magazine, what's that done for your life? Eleanor: It helped me turn my life around, it was like the first positive thing that has happened to me for a couple of years. A social worker actually pointed me in that direction, she was from England and she knew the magazine, and she said I've heard they're going to start up here. And when I went to the office there was actually something I could do, someone I could see, someone wanted and needed me for something. And that meant the world to me. And since then it's all been upwards. Damo: It's just a really fair and good organisation to work for, and I don't mind and I don't, and also I've come across

a computer lately, so I might write a bit in there too, cause they have a street sheet for the vendors to write their stories and poems and stuff in. So I might start doing a bit more writing and maybe doing a writing course or something like that you know, who knows. But I don't mind going ahead with my life. Andrew Denton: Peachie, you've nearly finished your landscaping degree, where do you see yourself in 5 years time? Peachie: I want to finish the last horticulture certificate cause I couldn't finish it when I was younger, when I first was doing it, so that's pretty, really the only thing I want to do. I want to make sure that's done before I'm 21. I've got one more year left. Andrew Denton: And what about you Eleanor, five years from now, where will you be do you hope? Eleanor: Well, believe it or not but I have actually managed to patch my relationship back together and five years from now I would like to work as a social worker with homeless people, because I think it's very important to me that, this bad thing happened to me, I would like to turn it around that's why I also appreciate that I can be here tonight. Because if I can make anyone's life turn for the better by sharing my experiences then maybe they won't make the same mistakes I made. That's one good thing that can come out of something really bad that happened to me. Damo: It's more important to have the experience than the certificate, if you know what I mean. Andrew Denton: It's fantastic the three of you came in tonight. And I hope life smiles kindly from here. Thank you. Damo, Eleanor, Peachie. Thank you....