This case highlights the bind that older people can experience with homelessness.
It may seem extreme in Australia 2006 but unfortunately it is NOT extreme.
This is a case that so many agencies could not solve.
But HAAG managed to resolve this case & to follow up for some time.
The worker who was crucial to this resolution now faces probable unemployment because HAAG cannot attract suitable funds from the State Government to replace recent funding cuts. Photos of this horrible housing are followed by the case study.

 

Shed lived in by elderly couple

The couple's cooking area

 

The couple's bathing area

The couple's toilet

 

Storage space for the couple's possessions

Homelessness Case Study A

Neighbours concerned about the health and safety of an elderly couple contacted HAAG for housing assistance.
Upon visiting the couple we found that they were living in an asbestos shed at the rear of their daughter's home.

The couple were in their seventies, spoke no English and had been living in the shed for nine months. The couple had been sponsored out to Australia twelve months earlier by their daughter and son-in-law. After three months of living in their daughter's home the couple had a falling out with their son-in-law and were asked to leave.

As sponsored migrants they were financially dependent on their daughter and son-in-law and therefore unable to access emergency housing, public housing or private rental. With no friends or other family to stay with their son-in-law physically moved the couple into the shed.

The shed contained their bed and some shelving for foodstuffs. They were cooking their meals on a single gas burner connected by rubber hose to a portable gas bottle. Electricity was being run to the shed by an extension lead from the house, however whenever it rained the lead had to be disconnected which left them without power for long periods of time. The husband managed to find some old carpet during a local hard rubbish collection and had placed this over the grass inside the shed.

Bathing occurred behind the shed from two large catering buckets filled with cold water from the backyard tap. A make-shift toilet had been devised by placing a bucket over the sewage easement located on the boundary of the property. The elderly woman was most concerned about toileting in privacy. To alleviate the woman's absolute stress about this her husband went out and found some plastic sheeting which he then draped across the fence.

As they had no income to buy food they had established a vegetable garden and had become reliant on weekly food parcels from a local church group. All of their other belongings, mainly clothing and manchester, had been placed in plastic bags and stacked along the fence protected only by plastic drop sheets.

Living in the shed during winter had caused their health to deteriorate. Both of them suffered severe bouts of bronchitis and the woman's arthritis had worsened. The woman had also experienced a head injury after falling on the uneven carpet.

With the onset of summer we were desperate to find the couple accommodation.

Fortunately within a four-week period HAAG successfully gained income support and public housing for them. As the couple had virtually no possessions, or any savings with which to establish their new home, HAAG provided them financial assistance from trust funding to purchase a fridge and some basic furniture.