John Fleming spent his Sunday afternoon huddled under a George Street awning listening to a conveyor belt of buses and a torrent of winter rain.
He spent that night sleeping somewhere nearby with the same noises echoing around him.
John Fleming is part of Sydney’s homeless population suffering from a lack of government services.
A recent report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that 58% of people looking for government-funded shelters are turned away.
John is makes up a part of that statistic; he has been homeless for five years but hasn’t been able to get government housing.
Trish Bramble, director of the Homeless inner city drift program, said this problem is rampant in Sydney because the supply of homeless services can’t meet the demand.
“Historically the services are in Sydney so you have a lot of people coming into the city.”
Andrew Everingham, Director of Sydney Homeless Connect said it’s because homeless services are sparse and dislocated in regional areas.
But Sydney has the department of housing, Centrelink and charities like The Station all within a manageable distance of each other.
Sydney Homeless Connect, an event which, provides homeless services on mass, was held last week and Mr Everingham said homeless individuals and families came from as far away as Bowral and the Nepean Coast.
“All the services are here in one place, it’s a one stop shop,” he said.
John came into the city for exactly this reason.
Even though he has applied for government housing several times in the last five years, he is still living on the street.
Ms Bramble said this is usually the case.
“Once they get in the city they stay in the city but there’s no affordable housing.
“There should be more affordable housing but this is not realistic.”
John admitted one of the reasons he has been turned away from government housing is because of his struggle with ‘self-discipline’.
The amount of red tape required to submit an application to the Department of Housing is hard to navigate for individuals like John who tussle with drug and alcohol problems.
John said many of the homeless people he knew suffered from similar problems and few of these people ever received government housing.
It’s a vicious cycle John explained, you need support to be self-disciplined but you need to be clean to get accepted for government housing.
“There are people who do succeed but they are very disciplined,” John said.
He continued to explain that people at the bottom of the rung can’t get a shoe in because of the requirements of the applications, it’s only the individuals who have support who can get through.
Chief Executive of Mission Australia Toby Hall said many of the individuals John is talking about don’t even contribute to AIHW’s 58%.
“We also need to recognise that these figures only tell part of the story. For every person fronting up at one of these government-funded services for help there’d be hundreds of others who chose not to – the ‘hidden homeless’… Those people don’t get counted in this research.”
Ms Bramble from the inner city drift program said many of the people John was talking about come from out of town and have no one to turn to for support.
“[It’s] no good placing people in motel unless they have support. Yes they need accommodation but they also need support to get out of the homeless cycle.”
Ms Bramble said because the majority of homeless don’t have any support it makes it harder for them to access homeless services like housing.
John said he is trying to apply for government housing but it’s difficult.
“I’m just alone”, he said.
The reality for individuals like John, who come into the CBD and for government housing and get turned away, is that the street is the only place to go.
With the raining spitting metres from his shoes and the roar of the city unrelenting, we asked John where he was going that night.
He couldn’t say.
“I’ll get it sorted out. I’ll see what happens”, he said.
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