In the wake of Abbott’s Brutopian comments at the Catholic Social Services Australia national conference, Stephen Nash, CEO of Melbourne homelessness and housing support agency HomeGround Services, has published a rebuttal of the claim that homelessness is a choice at New Matilda.
Elsewhere: Andrew Hamilton in Eureka Street on Tony Abbott, Jesus and the poor, and in the same publication, Vinnies’ John Falzon on the ‘New Paternalism’ and precisely why Abbott’s comments are so offensive.
Elsewhere: Andrew Hamilton in Eureka Street on Tony Abbott, Jesus and the poor, and in the same publication, Vinnies’ John Falzon on the ‘New Paternalism’ and precisely why Abbott’s comments are so offensive.
Good response from Stephen Nash.
Goes to show Abbott is not a mouthpiece for the Catholic Church (or even Goerge Pell) at all. He just happens to agree with some of its socially conservative perspectives on sexual and biomedical ethics.
Yes, indeed, josh.
Same goes for Falzon’s reflections, and Hamilton’s biblical exegesis.
The one consolation from this sorry episode, for me, is that it might get people to realise that the Australian Catholic Church is not some right wing monolith, and that there is a lively social justice tradition among many Australian Catholics.
Indeed Mark, although judging from some of the comments responding to Falzon’s piece, there are plenty of blind cheerleaders for Abbott in the One True Church!
Oh to be sure!
This demonstrates irrevocable incapacity(it sounded good at the time!) on behalf!! of those who think they are upper middle class. There will definately be a protest vote owing to those striving to be above the middle not being pleased with such representation.
‘Striving’ should not be a dirty word and yet it has become: the status quo is unsustainable so this is a necessary process of pain for the Libs!
Welcome to the 21st century: it might be alright if we all learn from the 9-11 ‘debacle’!
{…sip!}
….here’s cheers to hoping! =;^>’///,
I have to say I didn’t find Andrew Hamilton’s response all that convincing.
Here’s another reading which I find useful:
“Jesus’ statement about the poor always being with us is intended to shame us, to remind us that this is a true statement only because we have failed.”
It’s wonderful that we can all know the state of mind of those who are homeless. It is a hard truth to accept but there are people whose preference is to be homeless. It’s unimaginable to me, but it is true. They carry no birth certificates, driver licenses, credit cards, and have no tax file number. And they prefer it that way. Want proof? Get out on the streets and ask for yourself.
We white bread social democrat/liberals with our well developed theology of social justice find this hard to accept, but we have not yet learned the hard lessons set out anguishingly in Peter Sutton’s The Politics of Suffering.
John Falzon lists the amenities that we take for granted that homeless people very quickly lose. He also ennumerates why some people chose homelessness rather than rehousing in a regional town 300km away.
The owner of Lentil As Anything was famous for sleeping in the foreshore but he is the exception that proves the rule
“It is a hard truth to accept but there are people whose preference is to be homeless.”
It’s not at all John Harrison. And that should obviously be respected.
But that is no excuse, though often used, to do nothing for the vast majority in that situation who would dearly love the security of home and inclusion, if they could just get a foothold.
@John – while there might be a very small number who would say that (and it’s worth making here the point that people accustom themselves to all sorts of circumstances, and to say that they’re chosen is often a strategy to maintain some self respect), I doubt it’s true of the vast majority, and Tony Abbott’s view appears to be that we shouldn’t be doing as much as we are for all homeless people.
More broadly, there’s the question of whether choice is sacrosanct. Governments constantly do things to make people alter their situations which they would not personally choose to do, or say they wouldn’t.
John Harrison, I knew one once..He was schizophrenic, didn’t want help and traveled Australia busking and begging for his survival. Eventually, after a particularly bad turn, he was treated with a chemical that changed, hopefully forever, his outlook. He now leads a near normal, productive life that certainly would not be the case if everybody had your sick sad view on life and homelessness. He is my son.
What this shows, too, is a lack of seriousness. If the country could be run on facile one-liners, Abbott would make a great PM.
I’m sure Abbott included quotes in his recent book from Burke and others, but Abbott’s real philosophy and motivation seems to be hatred of the Left. If the Left is for it, he’s against it.
Ya know, from this enormous distance I feel I generally oughta keep a sort of neutral view of individual Oz pollies. (How could I reaaly tell the difference between all these names anyway?)
But if Abbott’s remarks about the homeless are anything like what I’ve been led to believe here, then they deserve a very round and loud objection — and I’m not the type given to chanting ‘Hey hey, ho ho!’ neither. (although I’ve occasionally been forced to chant such hooey in the past… It was pretty funny, really.)
Simply put, the literature on homelessness does not broadly support (or even narrowly support) the idea that it’s a ‘choice’. Not only that, but of all the social ills which beset modern societies, homelessness would be one of the easier ills to cure if it were approached rationally. For good and enlightening discussions, Mr. Abbott, see Sisters of the Road dot com. Or maybe org, I always forget which.
Zorronsky
I hope your son continues to do well.
First, dear Zorronsky, let’s have a respectful conversation. I too have family members whose experience of mental illness has been deep and life changing. Regretably they have not been able to benefit from life changing chemicals and while not homeless, nonetheless remain ill, sometimes seriously so. So my view is not one which is “sad and sick” as you suggest. Moreover, I hold no brief for Abbott. Indeed, have never been a member of any party. Ever.
Secondly, homelessness it’s a problem that responds to rationality, as j-p-z suggests. That’s part of the problem.
Finally, do we have the right as a community to deny people the choice to have no permanent domicile? The original inhabitants of this land might have a view on that.
The problem with that analogy, John, is twofold:
(a) you’re comparing a society where not being domiciled is a norm to one where being domiciled is;
(b) the concept of domicile or home or homelessness is incommensurable in the two cultures (at two different points in time).
John@16: the choice not to have a domicile is one we already deny to the original inhabitants. I’m a little lost trying to respond to that without casting you as a traditional anglo-australian racist.
To me, saying “it’s a choice” would mean that each homeless person has the ability and opportunity to make the choice on reasonable terms. I’m more familiar with that “choice” being between something horrid and homelessness. Things like “take the psychoactive drug with terrible side-effects” or “accept charity from people who explicitly consider you broken” and so on. Most people draw a line somewhere, and would “choose” homelessness rather than cross it.
Our job as a responsible society is to make sure that the choices that lead to homelessness are not irrevocable and are in comparison to reasonable alternatives.
John Harrison at #8.
“…….but we have not yet learned the hard lessons set out anguishingly in Peter Sutton’s The Politics of Suffering.”
I have just read this book and I came away from it wondering just what Peter’s prescriptions for a way to go forward, actually are. He has lived an astonishing life and seen a side of Australia few of us can imagine – and I take my hat of to him: a truly remarkable – and often very painful – life.
But I also have the worrying suspicion that Tony Abbott’s political outlook on life may align quite closely with Peter’s.
So while I’d not want to take this thread away from it’s immediate topic, your comments on what you see as the “hard lessons set out …” would be appreciated.
[But as "Homelessness" is not a life choice for a massive percentage of Australia's indigenous people, it obviously is on topic.]
Both Peter and Tony appear to be floundering: Peter maybe overwhelmed by nearly 40 years living and working in black communities, and witnessing the unprecedented and massive destruction of life in our black gulags – gulags of people dispossessed in the home of their forebears. He also seems to be at pains to discredit people who offer a “political” solution to the homelessness of black’s within their former home – something he has worked hard on himself!
Tony flounders by trying to wind the social and political clock back to an era where Papal infallability provided the dictats of life: morning to night; cradle to grave. But he compensates for this by a jutting jaw blokesy-ness that so many find endearing (quintessential dog whistling politics?).
Both leave me feeling depressed: Peter, because I had hoped he could offer a way forward to the relationship of (poor, homeless and self-destructive) “blacks” and (arrogant, know-all, powerful) “whites”.
Tony, well because he appears to desperately need to nail his horrible straight-jacket of purgatory on us all.
An interesting view from the US, whre a lot of people are teetering right on the edge. H/T Bitch, Ph.D.
The crux of the matter to me seems to be how0 we define “choice” and how define homelessness.
In the first instance Most people looking at Abbott’s statement may think that someone wakes up one morning and “choses” to sleep rough from then on. Realistically this is not how it happens and although no two people have precisely the same reason to be sleeping rough. if you listen to their stories many of them have substance abuse problems and because of that they make choices about how they spend their money, how they perform in their work or how they pay (or fail to pay) bills and rent obviously it is those choices that lead to them being homeless.
Secondly while some people define homelessness in fairly broad terms that includes all of those with insecure tenure which includes those living in boarding houses and hostels in the more general imagination the homeless are those who sleep rough and who are quite visible in our cities. While it can certainly be argued that those living in boarding houses can benefit from an improvement in public housing, those that are homeless enough to be sleeping rough are substantially more resistant to being “saved” mainly because their primary problem is not the lack of a roof or a bed but the monkey on their back which has to be addressed first before any real progress can be expected on their housing issues.
Nice one Iain, I haven’t read a ridiculous generalisation and misinformed statement since last Saturday, my previous most recent visit to the internet.
Did you ‘chose’ to serially mistype that comment or is it just an extravagant voyage into post-modern absurdism?
Zorronsky @12: metta. I am so happy for you. You just made my day.
Actually, Iain many people choose to sleep rough rather than in shelters, hostels or boarding houses, because experience has taught them it’s safer. Less chance of being assaulted and having their possessions stolen. So, it’s a rational choice. But, if they have the choice live in safe, secure accommodation, then that’s the choice they’ll make.
I doubt you’ll find there’s any relationship between sleeping rough and having substance abuse issues and sleeping in boarding houses and not having those issues.
All this choice stuff is bullpats.
Does anyone think it’s good for people if they live “rough”? No? Good.
Then we need to help them regardless of whether they made what could be called a “well informed, reasoned choice” about walking the Earth like David Carradine in Kung Fu, or whether they made bad choices that contributed to their current situation, or whether they were just beset by ridiculously bad luck.
We have to work to ensuring no one is left behind, all the while knowing that some will be.
Stuart Gordon’s last film, “Stuck”, dealt with this very notion(homelessness/choice). A bit hit and miss overall, but worth hiring out.
Tony and Iain and Co should remember it’s very common for a person to have suffered a string of bad luck (job retrenchment/rapid rent increases etc) – no ‘choice’ about it.
Couple that with personal or family traumas/breakdowns they were ill-equipped to deal with – no ‘choice’ there either – and the potential nightmare of dealing with a well-meaning but underfunded, ill-designed, and often plain unhelpful when it’s needed most, bureaucracy (“I’m sorry sir, but the computer says you’re not in the computer. We can’t help you until the computer says you’re in the computer”) – and it can become difficult, if not impossible, to pick yourself up.
Just 4.5% of Australian housing stock is social housing. The UK provides 20% of the housing stock as social housing.
We don’t have enough social housing stock. About 1 million people are on Newstart Allowance, then there are people on Disability Pensions, Carers Pensions, Sole parent Pensions, Aged Pensions then there are the low income working poor. It’s estimated that 1 in 5 Australians [20%] will suffer from some form of mental illness
Howard Cunningham @ 25. Well said. Thank you.
Yep, well said!
Apparently homelessness has risen in the City of Sydney during the Rudd years.
Response?
Howard@30.
GFC and it would be worse if it had not been for the stimulus package that arrested a possible big increase in unemployment.
Also, the measures to arrest the “homelessness is a choice years”, under Howard, take a while to filter through.