Tag Archives: melbourne

The agro beggar who called me a c bomb…

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I’d just finished work, it had been a big day.  I’d spent the last hour talking with a drunk lady in the laneway who needed help moving and finding a new place to stay.
I was walking up Bourke St on my way home via some bookshops when a beggar stopped me and asked for money. He said he needed some money to so he could a find place to stay that night.

I have a rather bad habit of not carrying any cash.  I said “Sorry I don’t have anything on me.”  For some reason I always want to show beggars my wallet to make them realise I’m not lying.

The man looked at me and said quite accusingly, “Yes you do.  You just don’t want to.  You and I both know that you could walk to an ATM and get out money right now.  You just don’t want to.”  He was right.

I remembered this man from  a few days ago, I had given him $10 for the same reason.  I fumbled out this explanation, but this did not satisfy him.  “It’s people like you that make people like me steal and mug people.  I don’t know how you sleep at night.”  He was getting angrier and angrier by the minute.  At this point I decided the best option was for me to keep walking.  I said, “Look. Sorry, I just don’t have any cash on me.  Good luck.”  and continued to walk up the street, and ducked in to the bookshop I was going to.  He continued to yell at me.  The last thing I heard him call out to me was the C bomb…it rang out in my ears.

I felt pretty crap.  He was so agro and aggressive.  He was right I could get out money and probably not even notice that I’d given him some.  This experience was such a contrast to the one I’d just had with the lady in the laneway.  She was very appreciative and not demanding and not wanting to impose on anyone.

Homeless people are people.  Just as some people are nice and others not so…

Could you blame this man’s agro?  He’d probably been asking for money all day (or months for that matter) and had the same answer from anyone.  He would of been frustrated watching people say they have no money then go and buy  food or go into nice book shops like I did.  People saying they have no money, but wearing nice clothes and holding nice bags.

 

I just walked past a homeless man

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RnmNZaW8oVQ
I just walked past a homeless man.
(I am assuming he was homeless as he had no shoes on, dirty clothes, mated hair and was looking through a bin. )

As I past him I tried to not look at him, I didn’t want to gain eye contact.

Why?

Honestly, I didn’t want to give him any money. I didn’t want to help him. And I knew that by looking at him, and getting eye contact with him I would feel terribly guilty about not helping him. I don’t want to feel bad. So the best tactic was (is) to pretend I didn’t see him and just keep walking. Just act as if he didn’t exist.

The problem is this didn’t/doesn’t really work. I still feel terrible. This man does exist and is probably still wondering the streets looking in bins, without and shoes.

Homeless Veteran Timelapse Transformation

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6a6VVncgHcY
Although this video is highlighting the transformation of a homeless man from an on the  surface to a deeper level. To me this video is about stereotypes.  About how we judge and treat someone based on what they look like.  As shallow as this sounds, if we take a look into our own lives we wont have to look hard to find examples.

We tell a story at Urban  Seed, and although it is an old one, and has almost entered the realm of myth.  It holds a profound truth about stereotypes. It goes something like this:

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There was once a man who worked on the top of end of Collins St in Melbourne.  He was a successful business man, looked the part and fit in very well in the city.

He was invited to a fancy dress party at the Old Melbourne Goal.  Not wanting to dress the same as everyone else he decided he would go as a homeless man.  He thought he was being rather clever, given that the Old Melbourne Gaol was known for the likes of Ned Kelly and prisoners. He thought a homeless man was a good modern twist of the outsider in society.

Wanting to look the part and have the best costume he deiced to grow his beard out.  He went to the op shop and found dirty hole-ly trousers. A slipper and an un-matching shoe to go with.  About 3 overcoats.  And he stuffed plastic bags full of rags.  We wore fingerless gloves and a beanie.  And even made a cardboard sign asking for money and put a bottle in a brown paper bag.

This fancy dress party happened to be after work.  So the man decided to get changed at walk and then walk to the party.  So he took off his nice suit and put on his ‘hobo’ costume.  Then hit the streets of Melbourne at peak hour on his way to the party.

As he walked up the busy streets to the party something strange happened.  He had this  feeling that everyone was looking at him, but no one was looking him.  Instead of having to push his way through the crowds like he normally would after work, he had all this space around him.  And one person even crossed the street as he got close.  This started to disturb him.  Did people think he was homeless?

His suspicions were confirmed when he went to get some cigarettes to complete his outfit.      As he went to go in the 7-11, the man serving from behind the counter came out and stood in the doorway stopping him from entering, and said, “you can’t come in here!”

The man was taken a back.  He just wanted to get some smokes.  He’d never been knocked back from a shop before.  Thinking on his feet, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his wallet, and said “what makes you think I can’t pay?”

Immediately the shop keeper, stepped aside and let him in.

—–

This story makes us question whether we really know who someone is.  I think we all would have assumed this man was homeless had we seen him that day walking the streets.

It also highlights how we include or exclude people based on they way they look.  As I feel this video is highlighting.

And finally it makes a sad point about money, and how it talks and changes everything.

Are we going to see homeless people?

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One of the things we do at Urban Seed is run city walks where talk about homelessness and the work Urban Seed does.
Something we often get asked is, “are we going to ‘see’ homeless people?”  This is always an interesting question.

Firstly how do we know what a homeless person looks like? Secondly if you could always tell what they looked like, would it be a good idea to go and look for them?    

We also regularly get requests to hear from people who are homeless themselves and have them share their stories in person on our walks, which sometimes does happen.

For us this is really tricky territory to navigate.

The power of story to us at Urban Seed is core to who we are. We believe that we can learn more from a story than from facts & figures.  This is because when we hear a story we engage with it and it moves us emotionally.  Hearing a story about someone’s life from the person themselves is truly powerfully.  It has the ability to allow us to get to know the person and understand complex issues more.  Therefore helping to breakdown stereotyping and  judging.

But having said that we also need to be careful how we honour and tell those stories.  Because of the impact and power in a story we need to be careful that we don’t just ‘use’ the person so as to tell a good story.

For us at Urban Seed we exist to honour and be with those have been marginalised and ignored from wider society.  Part of this means we get to hear stories about people lives that are sad, powerful, moving and beautiful.  Graciously many of these people are willing to have their stories shared by us on a walk.  And sometimes they are happy to be there to share their stories in person.  We tread a fine line between allowing those who want to share their story a space to do so, and exploitation of that person for the sake of a good story.  At Urban Seed we want to honour  and repsect the most vulnerable first.  

And so it is for this reason, that more often than not, we do not always have homeless people come on our walks or there to share their own stories.  Rather we advocate on their behalf.

 

In the Public Eye

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eS8aoLoLqPU
Pilch (a Melbourne based law firm offering pro-bono legal services to disadvantaged) has launched a new campaign:
In the Public Eye, personal stories of homelessness and fines.

Through a series of videos telling the stories of homeless people living in the public eye and the risk of being targeted by officers giving fines. They call for greater insight from the people who give fines. They ask the very sensible question: what’s the point of fining people who clearly can’t pay?

Take action and join the call.

Melbourne the most liveable city?

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For 3 years in a row Melbourne has been voted the most liveable city.  Out of 140 cities, Melbourne  was given perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure.

For Victoria’s 23,299 homeless I’m not sure if this would be true for them.  One in three of those are children under the age of 12.  And almost half were under the age of 25.  (2006 census)

For more info see : It takes a home

Blue laneway

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Just the other week an artist  – Adrain Doyle – transformed this iconic Melbourne graffiti laneway by spray painting it ’empty-nursey blue’.  A colour he says sums up his feelings about his childhood.

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It wasn’t long before the taggers, graffers, and street artists were were back, painting over the ’empty-nursey blue’.

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I went to see the laneway 3 days after it had been sprayed blue, to see it quickly returning back to its bright past.  When I arrived there was school students, tourists, grafters alike all there to see the laneway with a camera/phone in hand.

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One of my favourite things about street art is its ability to transform a space and bring people together.  Here we all were different people, but at that moment all there to wonder and marvel over the ’empty-nursey blue’ laneway.

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