Joe Hildebrand samples homeless life when the Salvos give him a car to sleep in, police and public bathing are involved.
IT was shortly after 8pm when the storm clouds broke and the dark grey sky began dumping torrents on top of me. The food van was nowhere to be seen and the lightning strikes were creeping ever closer to the giant tree I was standing underneath. If ever there was a sign that God wanted me dead then surely this was it.
Even if I survived being hit by a falling branch, I would spend the night wet, cold and sleepless. There was no way to get dry, no bed to lie down in and, worst of all, no beer.
This is what the Salvation Army calls "sleeping rough", the pointy end of homelessness that covers people living on the streets, in makeshift accommodation or in my case the back seat of a 1989 Toyota Corolla. Indeed, the Corolla, which was thoughtfully equipped with a towel, a couple of shirts and a bucket of water for washing was five star accommodation compared to many. For a homeless guy I was pretty softcore.
In fact the Salvos recently came across a case where a whole family was living in a single sedan for three months.
Stephen Lacey* lost his job and when he defaulted on his mortgage he, wife Susan and their three kids were evicted. Soon after he became critically ill and was in hospital. Susan took the kids to live in the car.
She slept in the front seat with her teenage son beside her, while her eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter both slept in the back seat. If you think that's bad, it should also be noted that the oldest boy is autistic and the young daughter is deaf.
As I sat wet and hungry in the dark with the rain bucketing down on the car so loud and thick you couldn't see or hear anything else, I thought about that family and for the life of me I could not figure out how they did it. I still can't.
Joe Hildebrand roughs it in the back seat of a 1989 Corolla to help launch the Salvation Army's Christmas Appeal. Pictures: Brad Hunter, John Grainger Source: The Daily Telegraph
Fortunately my train of thought was broken shortly before midnight when a red and blue light started flashing outside. Great, I thought. Now I'm going to be wet, hungry and arrested.
I wound down the window to see a police officer get out of the car and walk towards me. Suddenly I realised I wasn't sure if it was even legal to sleep in a car. This was Sydney after all - even parking in a loading zone is punishable by death.
But the kindly policewoman shone a torch in my direction and said: "Hi there. Just sleeping in your car are you?"
"Er, yes." I said. I was surprised at how, well, unsurprised the officer was. Clearly this was not an uncommon discovery.
Salvos say they've had people drive up in a Mercedes and beg for food. When the GFC hit they'd had people who'd gone from well-off middle-class families to flat broke and about to lose the house almost overnight.
Because that's where I was - in a carpark outside the Salvation Army office in Chatswood, the very heart of Sydney's middle-of-the-middle north shore.
Even there they've had people sleeping outside the premises, sometimes in cars, sometimes not. If it's that bad in Chatswood you can only imagine how bad it is elsewhere. Sadly, the Salvos don't have to imagine - they see it all for real. So far this year they have assisted 17,000 homeless people across Australia, more than 2000 of whom were sleeping rough.
But now it's the Salvos' turn to ask for help. Today they're launching an appeal for people to give a few bucks so they can give families and individuals some comfort, some hope and maybe even a second chance this Christmas.
Parting with money is hard for everybody but I can tell you from first hand experience that it's a hell of a lot easier than sleeping in a car.
* Names have been changed.
Follow Joe on Twitter: @Joe_Hildebrand
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