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June 17, 2003
The newly revamped The Adelaide Review has an article on the homeless. The image of the 1930s is returning.
The article is by Andrew Mole. It says that there are about 6000 homeless in Adelaide and the numbers increasing. As is to be expected since homelessness has multiple causes: primarily intravenous drugs, mental illness and gambling; followed by domestic violence, alcohol and unemployment. The old profile of the male homeless is changing as there is a surgence of middle aged women due to the rise of pokies gambling in pubs.
Those trying to deal with the problem, such as Baptist Community Services, are committed to the issue but they have no money. Others providing services include the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul. But there is little financial support for community health ----health out in the field---where it is most needed.
The Baptist Community services argue that the whole dry zone aboriginal issue has nothing to do with homelessness. The Dry Zone pushes many of the indigeneous people who use the city's squares for meetings and socialising beyond the fringes of the CBD. It makes them invisible.
The Adelaide City Council tips in money for support services but it does not see the issue as its problem. It is obssessed with dry zones for aborigines gathering together to drink and talk and in shifting these aborigines from Victoria (and Whitmore) Square to the western parklands. The Adelaide City Council appears to be caught up in a Tidy Town Town mentality.
Despite a buget surplus of around $300m the Rann Government says there is no money. Little money is forthcoming from the Rann Government. It supports the dry zone, sees the dry zone as a part of the homeless problem, and sees the rise in the homeless being caused by the harsh breaching scheme of the Federal Department of Social Serivces, which results in people dropping through the welfare net. The Rann Government says that its caring hands are tied because of the lack of federal funding for mobile health services, detox units, housing support agencies and staff.
Since the Olsen Liberal Government the homeless problem has been swept into the Dry Zone issue----ie., it was constructed as a law and order problem. The Dry Zone is used as a smokescreen by Liberal politicians.
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