By Alesha Capone
LIVING on the streets is tough, and those who work with homeless people know the troubles they can face in the everyday battle to survive.
The Wyndham City Salvation Army’s operations manager Terry Brookshaw said in December last year the organisation started holding community lunches on Wednesdays and Thursdays at Café Agape in Werribee.
Every week, between 80 and 150 people show up for the meal, for which much of the food is donated and some workers are volunteers, while others are hospitality students on work experience.
“The community lunch is for people who may just need a cooked meal or the companionship, or maybe they haven’t had a meal because they’ve been living on the streets which we call sleeping rough,” Mr Brookshaw said. At the Wyndham City Salvation Army’s main office, workers can sometimes offer food parcels and mattresses to those people in need, who have been referred to them by Centrelink.
However, Mr Brookshaw said if people needed assistance with housing, the Salvation Army’s assessors would refer them to other agencies.
He said sometimes the not-for-profit organisation was so inundated with requests for help they were forced to turn people away.
“We see that on a day-to-day basis with the community services,” he said.
“We do know there is an increasingly significant need in Wyndham and in the area of homelessness, help needed can range from emergency accommodation, transition housing and short-term to long-term.
“We know of people sleeping down by the Werribee River in their car.
“Someone recently came in because they were sleeping in their car and their mattress was stolen from their vehicle, so they needed a new mattress to sleep on.”
Mr Brookshaw said the issue of homelessness in Wyndham was invisible to many residents but it could be heartbreaking to witness people in need.
“Donations are going to help, we are always looking for more resources and people. A big issue is we’ve had federal funding reduced, which is one reason we can’t do all we used to,” he said.
“We could be open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and we still would need more space on the calendar.”
See salvationarmy.org.au/werribee for more information.
