Of course our lying turd-in-chief told us in a moment of his usual stupidity that homelessness in a choice...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiekYLkMyv8

Yes some homeless people have made "mistakes" that led to their predicament. Our biggest mistake was to "reasonably" elect Tony... I did not vote for him (I was not taking in by the bullshit) because I know where Tony is coming from and where Tony is going to... trying to take us with him on his hypocritical turdy journey. 

Please stop him as soon as you can. Make him homeless so that the real homeless can sleep properly at night.

Advert at top from the Sydney Morning Herald, September 1, 1962.

Updated Mon 28 Apr 2014, 3:04pm AEST

Aged in her late 50s, Margaret found herself homeless and sleeping rough on the streets of Brisbane.

Margaret is just one of a rising number of Australian women aged over 55 who are having to seek housing support, live on the street, or are on the verge of homelessness.

In a report released this month, Older Women's Pathways Out of Homelessness in Australia, commissioned by the Mercy Foundation, University of Queensland researchers Cameron Parsell and Maree Petersen describe older women's homelessness as 'hidden', because more vulnerable older women are less likely to be sleeping rough, and are therefore less visible.

The women were more likely to be staying with friends, living in a car, living under the threat of violence in their home, or physically 'hiding', which also means official counts of homelessness among older women are limited.

The report analysed the latest research on older women and homelessness from Australia and internationally, and revealed that although some older women had long-term difficulties with homelessness, the largest proportion of older women presenting with housing crisis in Australia had actually led conventional lives, and rented while working and raising a family. Few had had involvement with welfare and support systems in the past.

It also showed that women who are older and living alone tended to be poorer than men their age, less able to maintain homeownership, and less able to compete in the private rental market for affordable accommodation.

The report suggested financial insecurity in later life may be more the experience of older women who had been employed in lower paid, precarious employment, and so these women may be more susceptible to a crisis which put their job at risk. This was confirmed by international research, which showed women (not only older women) saw poverty, limited education, violence and addiction in their families and relatives as the main causes of homelessness.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-28/margaret-the-hidden-face-of-homelessness/5411810

The land that was once a mother to you and your people is changed forever. The society which nurtured you and people permanently changed — if not extinguished.

Based on the accounts of Bill Gammage and available historical records, this is the crime European settlers have perpetrated on the Australian landscape and on its Indigenous people.

Gammage’s fundamental point was the ‘sophisticated, successful and sensitive farming regime integrated across the Australian landmass’ – described by him as ‘a majestic achievement’ – ended with European settlement. And it is this crime that is, perhaps, still denied by many. 

Not only was it a crime, but it hints at the errors of our society.

Australians now are not born with a home as an undeniable birth right.

They do not inherit the security and comfort of knowing that, come what may, there will always be a place where they are welcomed. Instead they are born dispossessed. Born into a country which has been neatly parcelled out to private owners.

A home for most Australians now is something insecure, something that takes many a lifetime to attain, and for some is never attained. Something that can coldly and callously be taken away when one is most vulnerable, due perhaps to the loss of a job or an inability to work due to personal injury or distress.

Banks can repossess if payments are not made — and even if this never happens, all those with a mortgage must live under the oppressive anxiety of this threat.

And even once a home is owned it is not safe. If one struggles to pay council rates, the home can be forfeited.

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/australia---no-home-for-the-homeless,6501

Eu Jung Cahill Che, writing in the Japan Times in 2001, said that Tuvalu will be the first casualty of climate change. Over a decade later we are living on borrowed time and require urgent action for our survival.

Tuvalu is a small island nation, with a population of around 11,000 people and landmass of 27 square kilometres. The highest point on the island is less than four meters above sea level. Tuvalu is without mountains and without rivers. Rainwater harvesting is our main source of water.

Along with Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, we are the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Climate change, for Tuvaluans, is one of the greatest challenges of our time because will greatly disturb our normal way of life.

Our people continue to experience the dramatic effects of climate change on our islands. Our traditional root crops, such as pulaka and taro, are gradually dying because of sea water intrusion and frequent droughts. Fish poisoning has become a major issue, due to increased temperature and acidification of sea-water. King tides, combined with strong winds, make things much worse. We do not need any scientific explanation to tell us that we have a problem.

We are losing our lands to the sea as a result of soil erosion, and land defines who we are. Our culture, our life, our heritage, and our language are all rooted in the land. However, I am afraid that Tuvaluans will likely lose our lands to the sea in the future if nothing is done.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/my-home-is-being-swallowed-by-the-sea-will-australia-do-nothing

Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has slept outside overnight in the cold Canberra winter to raise money to help fight homelessness.

About 100 of the ACT's top business and community leaders, including ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury and Labor Senator Kate Lundy, braved a chilly night last night for the Vinnies CEO Sleepout.

Participants slept on cardboard with just a sleeping bag and pillow for comfort in the courtyard at the National Film and Sound Archive.

The temperature got down to 2.5 degrees Celsius at 4:30am this morning, but the Communications Minister said he slept quite well.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-20/malcolm-turnbull-at-ceo-sleepout/5537934

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Unfortunately, the Abbott regime unsocial policies are likely to exacerbate the number of homeless. Thus negating a lot of the "charitable" sleep over, with business mostly footing the donations which this year it seems are a bit more tight-arsed. Good for you nonetheless. I would not even sleep in the dog house.

Mind you, had he been a real vagrant, I am confident he would have been kicked out of the courtyard at the National Film and Sound Archive.... 

Most ex-prisoners are unemployed or homeless six months after their release, and the results are worse for people with mental illnesses, an Australian study has found.

The University of Melbourne study interviewed 1,300 Queensland prisoners while incarcerated and then again three and six months after their release.

The study's lead author associate professor Stuart Kinner said the research was some of the first to look beyond the lifespan and rates of recidivism of ex-prisoners.

"This is the largest study in Australia and one of the largest in the world looking at what happens to people after they're released from prison.

"What we found is that they experienced a range of poor health and social outcomes across a whole lot of different domains," Professor Kinner said.

The number of prisoners in Australia topped 30,000 for the first time last year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Of those prisoners, 58 per cent had served a previous sentence in jail.

The study said prisons have been referred to "as the mental health institutions of the 21st century" and almost half of the participants reported having been diagnosed with a mental health disorder.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-25/australian-study-of-ex-prisoners-finds-high-rates-homelessness/5548430

See article at top...

Firefighters discovered more than a dozen young people living in shipping containers and caravans when they were called to a fire at an industrial complex in inner-city Sydney overnight.

Eighteen people, believed to be of an Asian nationality, were found inside the containers and vans at the back of a large factory compound in Alexandria.

Electricity had been wired to the units and they appeared to be well established on the site, NSW Fire and Rescue Acting Superintendent Wayne Phillips said.

Homeless people in parts of Australia have a lower life expectancy than people in some of the world's poorest countries, new research has revealed.

The research from Hobart's only men's shelter, Bethlehem House, was presented on Friday at the National Homeless Conference in Brisbane.

The shelter found that the average age of death for 41 men who had stayed there over a decade was about 48.

Case worker Jeff Bendall said that was lower than some parts of Africa.

"The main reason is the fact that being on the street can cause its own health issues," he said.

"A lot of these guys sleep rough every night in the cold. Therefore the body's working very hard to try to maintain the heat.

"Also drug and alcohol, they have kidney problems, you've also got smoking.

"Approximately 85 per cent of our clients here at Bethlehem house are smokers and that leads to emphysema."

Homelessness Australia's CEO Glenda Stevens said it was a similar story in other parts of the country.

"For men who experience chronic homelessness across Australia, the average life expectancy is between about 45 and 47 years of age, which is an alarmingly young age for men in a country as wealthy as ours to die," she said.

"The average life expectancy for a man living in Somalia is actually 48.86 years.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/australian-homeless-have-shorter-lives-than-some-africans/5741024

Maguire, an octogenarian Catholic priest who co-hosts a Triple J show with John Safran, is offering a third-placed prize of five nights in a chain of high-end hotels, with the second-placed prize being five flat-screen TVs.

But the top prize will be the chance to work in one of the soup kitchens run via the Father Bob Foundation, which aims to feed and provide educational support to the homeless and disadvantaged.

The unusually structured competition is being used by Maguire to highlight the fact that while Australia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, nearly half of the population has to deal with a mental health condition at some point in their lives and more than 100,0000 Australians are homeless.

The “win happiness guaranteed” competition is being promoted via a video, created by Cummins & Partners, of Maguire being hit on the head by a ball on the beach and revving his mobility scooter as he explains the concept.

“It’s sad to see people with so much feeling so miserable,” Maguire told Guardian Australia during a conversation that included a lengthy explanation of how he needed to get prepared for a drive to Benalla.

“I’m concerned about the bottom 1% getting poorer, we’ve got to look after that, but to do that we need to get the talent and the know-how of the middle class. We want to form a strategic alliance and create weapons of mass construction, rather than destruction...

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/24/father-bob-offers-people-chance-to-win-happiness-guaranteed

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