Pin & Kei, together again

Pin was 79 & her husband Kei was 80. Pin & Kei were referred to our service by Royal District Nursing homelessness program. Pin and Kei required access to both transitional accommodation and long-term housing. The couple had been living in Australia for a few years and had limited supports in place as well as not understanding how the housing system in Victoria worked. Neither of them spoke any English adding to their barriers to accessing appropriate services. Once supported by our service we successfully secured transitional housing, however it was a bedsit and the transitional housing manager would only allow one of them to stay there. Kia moved into the bed sit and Pin stayed at a refuge where she was volunteering. Pin did not have a room of her own at the refuge and slept on a fold up bed in the Nun’s office. The couple received their permanent housing offer some ten months after commencing support. These are Pin’s comments on their housing journey.

What was the hardest thing to deal with?

Before coming to our new home we were separated a lot of the time as we could not find accommodation for two people. I was volunteering at a refuge the Nun’s were running, mainly cooking and cleaning, in exchange for this work they let me sleep in their office. As it was a refuge, Kia could not stay there and he stayed at a couple of rooming houses run by people in the Chinese community. One of the really terrible things that happened during his stay was someone assaulted him and he was badly injured. I was very fearful of him being on his own and us not being able to look out for each other, we were both constantly worried about the future and if we would ever have any where to be safe and secure.

How do you feel now?

I am so glad we have our own home and that we will never be forced to live apart again. We are both so happy here, even though it is an older flat we have two bedrooms and it is very spacious. We live within a large Chinese community which makes everything for us much easier. We are enjoying our independence and feel we have a very secure future.