I am one of the 120,000 homeless Australians living in the shadow of society’s indifference to our lives. Perhaps if you knew how we got here, our cries for help would be harder to ignore. In my case, I fled a difficult childhood before taking whatever jobs I needed to survive.
I have been a palliative care worker, shopkeeper, barista and masseuse. I even shucked oysters for a while. Jacq Gallagher became homeless when her home was put up for short-term holiday rental.
Credit: Eve Gallagher And until last summer, my hard work paid off. But when my former landlord told me she was turning my long-term home into a short-term holiday stay, every other rental property available was terrifyingly out of reach. I started sleeping in a cemetery because the dead were less likely to hurt me than the living.
A beautiful family then invited me to stay while I converted a van into a mobile home with help from family and friends. I’m now making my way up the waiting list for public housing. At 54, though, I’m worried about surviving the next 10 years without secure access to clean water and electricity.
A range of health conditions – including spinal cysts, epilepsy and complex PTSD – are not on my side. But what other choice do I have? ‘The dead were less likely to hurt me than the living.’ Jacq Gallagher lived in this cemetery when she first became homeless.
Credit: Eve Gallagher One-quarter of dwellings in the coastal region I live in are holiday homes . That’s 6000 homes, with hot water and clean sheets, sitting empty for months at a time. The 2020 bushfires took another 500 homes, many of which haven’t been rebuilt.
My friend Tilly* is seven years old and, ever since her mum escaped her violent dad, she’s been living on the run . For months, they bounced between women’s shelters, friends’ houses and short-term rentals that were cold and mouldy, before settling on their car. Living in a car scares Tilly, but she’s also fiercely protective of her mum.
When asked what she got from the Easter Bunny, she defiantly declared that the Easter Bunny only visits kids who live in houses, but that she doesn’t care because she doesn’t like houses anyway..
