Kids don’t choose poverty and homelessness: Destiny’s story
We get taught in school if there is a fire or an emergency to call Triple 0 and there will be an ambulance or fire truck on the way. But no one really knows what to do when they’re in poverty or housing crisis.
I’ve experienced poverty all my life, on and off. There have been times where my family’s had more money and then less money.
Up until I was about four, my mother and I were couch surfing. I don’t remember all of it but after that we lived in public housing until I was 18. Even in public housing, it wasn’t always the most stable living situation, and the property was so run down.
Every winter we would know my mum’s roof was going to fall in. Every winter, it was a thing that was going happen. And no matter how much we’d call and complain – I think people just look at you like, oh, you’re in public housing. So you don’t get the help you deserve.
For me, poverty looked like going to school with clothes that were too short or didn’t fit, among my peers who had new uniforms every year. It would also mean my school lunch might not look that exciting in comparison to my friends – when I did bring it. Sometimes I had to pretend or make excuses: “I just didn’t want to bring lunch today…”
I have one distinct memory from grade one. My teacher noticed that I was late, and my hair wasn’t brushed that well, so she pulled me aside and she gave me a bag with a toothbrush and a hair brush. I knew that was something not every student received.
The older I got, the more obvious that it became that my family didn’t have much money.
You’re aware that people see you and you don’t want people to put themselves out to help you because you’re sort of used to it – that’s your normal. Feeling different made me more withdrawn and this made me miss out on some opportunities in school.
I feel like a lot of kids who grew up in public housing, that’s all they know and they recycle through the system.
Kids who are brought up in poverty don’t easily get out of it.
I’m hoping to change that for myself. But a lot of people unfortunately, don’t get the chance. It makes kids feel like they’re lesser than, but it’s not their fault.
When I was pregnant with my daughter at 18, I realised that the odds were against me, so I had a very set plan of what I was going to do to.
It was originally to live with my mum for six months to a year until I was able to put Winnie in childcare, get a job, and then move out. But my plan just didn’t happen because I was forced in the complete opposite direction. It was very difficult because we were in poverty, but not through any fault of our own.
My whole life we complained about the state of our apartment to get it fixed and it wasn’t until I tried to take my daughter home that they said it was unsuitable for a child. This left us with nowhere to go.
I understood, as a parent, their reasoning but I couldn’t understand why they didn’t do anything about it when I was a child. There just isn’t enough attention and dedication to, to making those places livable and sustainable for everyone.
When my daughter Winnie was born we stayed in hotels and then in a refuge and the refuge put us in contact with Launch Housing, who then got us transitional housing before a permanent social housing offer.
Not everyone receives the support we did but even so it was really stressful.
With a newborn, it was very hard because we didn’t know what was happening tomorrow. We were living day to day.
When I finally moved into long term housing it gave me the stability to be able to study again, to get my daughter in kindergarten and do things I couldn’t do beforehand because I was moving around so much. I could wake up and have a coffee and relax knowing what I was going to do next. It’s a feeling of relief and security and stability.
When Launch Housing provided me an opportunity two years ago to share my story, it made me feel like I had moved past that hard time. I could speak on experience rather than feeling stuck in that situation.
I think a lot of people just don’t end up getting help because it’s so frustrating and hard to navigate.
When you’re connected with so many organisations, with different requirements for their support – it’s like a full-time job managing the connection with them.
I wish that organisations would work together more to bring support around each person. There’s also a lot of organisations out there that say if you have another worker they can’t help you even if the services they provide are completely different.
No one teaches you what to do when you are in dire need.
We get taught in school if there is a fire or an emergency to call Triple 0 and there will be an ambulance or fire truck on the way. But no one really knows what to do when they’re in poverty or housing crisis. A lot of people just get lost and confused. If you have anxiety or depression on top of that, it would be impossible to have to speak to 15 people and then hear rejection all the time.
It becomes impossible to move forwards if you don’t have a home base. You can’t get a house without a job but you can’t get a job without a house. And you can’t simply write down a street name and hope for the best. You’re just stuck.
Children don’t choose to be in poverty.
People who don’t grow up in poverty need to stop teaching their kids that people who do, deserve that life.
Even people in public housing are judged as though they didn’t try hard enough but there are so many factors that can lead people into that situation. In Australia, if you get involved in the floods or something unexpected happens, you can end up in poverty or homelessness.
If from when you are born to when you’re 18, you’ve been told by society that you are less than. How are you going to believe in yourself? In schools, there’s a lot of judgment and it would ease a lot of children’s minds if they didn’t have to grow up feeling they need to hide themselves.
The community need to have more understanding and work together to build people up instead of creating more rules and hoops for people to jump through to survive.