Community rallies to support Tasmania’s rough sleepers
- deansimpson7
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
BY LERISSE SMITH
When a brazen $11,000 theft stripped the Salvos’ Tasmanian-based Street to Home Program of critical material aid to assist people sleeping rough, it could have stopped them in their tracks.
But instead of halting progress, the community united and rose above the adversity.
Thanks to a simple callout on ABC Radio, not only were 40 stolen sleeping bags and tents quickly replaced, but more than 100 tents and sleeping bags were donated, along with substantial financial contributions that exceeded anything the team expected.
“For the first time ever, we’ve got brokerage that will enable us to actually provide more comprehensive support to people who are sleeping rough,” said John Stubley, State Development Manager of Homelessness at Salvos Social and Community Mission.
“We are incredibly humbled by the support we have received, and incredibly appreciative of that support. In Tasmania, when we ask for this sort of support, you can always guarantee that it will be forthcoming.”
And it wasn’t just the donations that mattered – it was what they symbolised.
“It (the support) does make our job a lot easier,” he reflected.
It helps when someone who is sleeping rough is handed a sleeping bag, and you’re able to say to them, ‘This was donated by a member of the community who didn’t want to see you go cold.’ It has more value to actually feel that someone cares about you than just to give money … It is quite significant for the person who is sleeping rough, because it’s very easy to feel no one cares about you, and it’s a tangible sign that someone actually cares about you.”
The Street to Home Program is an assertive outreach support model for people sleeping rough in southern Tasmania. Each day, its two street workers are the only people in southern Tasmania who look for people living on the streets. They provide whatever supports they need.
At first, it’s survival essentials such as tents, sleeping bags and thermal undergarments. Beyond that, they help with ensuring they are on the housing waitlist, signed up for Centrelink benefits, and connected to vital services such as GPs.
“So, the sleeping bags and tents are the very pointy end of homelessness,” John explained. “It is absolutely critical for those who are sleeping rough on the streets.”
The Street to Home program runs on a tight budget. Funded mostly by The Salvation Army, there is no significant brokerage to enable them to buy tents and sleeping bags.
Then came the break-in – just before their annual SleepOut to raise awareness and funds for homelessness.
For three mornings straight, John took to ABC Radio, determined to turn loss into hope. An urgent appeal was made for assistance to the broader Tasmanian community to donate good-quality second-hand or new sleeping bags and tents.
And the response was immediate.
An influx of sleeping bags and tents poured in, along with substantial financial donations. That outpouring of generosity unlocked new possibilities.
Now, when someone who has been sleeping rough is offered housing but doesn’t have anything to put in the residence, the Salvos team can lend an extra helping hand. The donation funds enable the team to buy them a mattress, for example, as a starting point to sleep in the house they secured.
But the need keeps growing.
In 2024, the program supported 300 individuals. This year, they are on track for 400 – a huge feat given that two workers are supporting 400 people. John said it was a ‘light touch’ support, walking alongside the person to help them connect to the services they need, rather than being the service provider themselves.
And the 30 per cent increase comes on top of skyrocketing case complexities.
“We are seeing about a 70 per cent increase in the complexity of people presenting for help,” he emphasised. “So, more have mental health issues than they did the year before, more have substance abuse issues and or both.”
Contrary to what many assume, it is not drugs or mental illness that led to homelessness generally, but a lack of housing. For most rough sleepers, it is a story rooted in trauma. It generally starts with trauma in their youth, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, seeing someone killed or losing a parent.
“Usually, in their case, they have had multiple episodes of trauma,” John remarked.
“It can be different events. They have just been unlucky, or with something like domestic violence, that can be more of the same on an ongoing, extended basis, which causes significant mental health issues that go unaddressed. It results in loss of family connection, social networks, loss of home if they ever had one, loss of a job if they ever had one, and ultimately, they turn to substance abuse to dull the pain of their stuffed-up life. So, the mental health coming from trauma is certainly a key factor in the story of someone living on the street.”
Every person sleeping rough carries invisible scars of trauma.
And not enough services are being provided to help address those mental health issues. The State Development Manager believes that much change could occur if there were readily accessible, affordable mental health services to help everyone address their issues when they arise, as the need is great.
Beyond his frontline work, he has taken his message beyond the streets, speaking at public events to educate the wider community about homelessness and challenge the misconceptions that surround it.
Through these engagements, powerful insights and stories are shared to help people better understand the realities faced by those sleeping rough – and the importance of compassion and connection in creating change.
An important message relayed to the audience is that if a person sees someone who is homeless and gives that person a negative look or makes a derogatory comment, they are doing so because they can see the way the person is looking at them. They can feel that judgment.
The audience is asked to think about the following: If you’re living on the street and your life is totally messed up and you’ve got no friends, every person who looks at you does so with the expression that they clearly think you are a loser.
John referenced a moment from the SBS television series Filthy Rich and Homeless, when an exceptionally well-dressed, successful businesswoman, accustomed to being seen as a picture of success, was made over in street clothes, with her hair messed up and dirt rubbed onto her face.
Within two hours, the businesswoman was in tears, simply from the way strangers looked at her.
“She felt exactly what someone who lives on the street feels like just in the way people looked,” he recalled.
“It was a particularly significant point. I think it’s important to remind people that, at the end of the day, we are all human beings.
“Yes, some of us have been luckier than others. They didn’t choose that life. And that’s also something I want to point out. They didn’t choose to be where they are, and they don’t want to be where they are – but they don’t know how to get back from that situation.”
And ultimately, change starts with compassion.
“If you actually stop and say hello to the person sleeping rough and ask, ‘How are you going and do you have everything you need?’, you will have a perfectly civil conversation,” he commented.
Yet even compassion alone can’t fix a broken system.
Frontline workers continue to face challenges due to fragmented, siloed homelessness services. The system assumes homeless people can find their own way to help – an analogy being like asking a car-accident victim to arrange their own hospital care, added John.
“So, what street home workers do is literally be that conduit to connect them to those services,” he emphasised.
“There’s two people in southern Tasmania who do that. Everyone else sits in their office and waits for the clients to come to them. Our program is a vital program – and I believe very strongly in what we do.”
