Women's shelters: out in the cold
By Angela Matheson SYDNEY — When Nisha finished her HSC and asked her father if she could take a part time waitressing job, he waved a pan of boiling oil in her face and threatened to kill her. She believed him and, armed with a phone card and a dollar in her pocket, took a train to Sydney and rang the police. They organised a restraining order against Nishas father and delivered her, shaking and terrified, to the Salvation Armys Samaritan House womens shelter in inner city Surry Hills. Nisha stayed for six months — the standard time it takes, according to refuge workers — with round the clock care and counselling — to stabilise a traumatised woman and get her back on track. A year later Nisha has a job, her own flat and a supportive boyfriend. Shes curled up on a couch at Samaritan House, which she still visits each week for support and counselling. Sent by her high caste Indian family to be educated in western boarding schools, Nisha has a Benazir Bhutto born-to-rule air about her. But like most women who've made it to a shelter, shes a mass of contradictions: one moment enraged at her abusers, the next internalising the abuse, flogging herself for the way shes been treated. "Eight of my fathers friends sexually abused me when I visited my family during school holidays", she says, choking back her anger. "I ran away twice, but my father brought me back and told me hed kill me and make it look as if I was just the next dead backpacker." She pauses, and starts to cry: "But he didn't know anything better; he is traditional and Id become western. He was caught between two worlds, so its not his fault. I still believe Im good for nothing like he told me and I still love him very much." A Salvation Army officer leans over and touches her hand. "Youre not in any way to blame for what happened to you, you know", he says softly. She pulls her hand away angrily. "I know. No, I dont know. I must have done something to have brought this on myself."
The staff who run the 55 womens shelters and hostels scattered across Sydney, however, are in no doubt about whos to blame for the bashed, bleeding and psychologically traumatised women and children who land daily on their doorsteps. "We've got a hit list of horrible men wed love to get", says refuge worker Barbara over her usual two-bags-a-time mug of tea at the kitchen table in a suburban shelter at Dee Why, on Sydneys northern beaches. "Were just waiting for one of us to get terminal cancer so we can get moving on it." This marvellous idea sets the other staff off, and theyre soon comparing revenge fantasies, screaming with laughter over real-life horror stories in the manner typical of other atrocity workers like rescue police and morgue staff. "I know, I know", says Sally, whos organising notes on a bottom-of-the-range Ikea sofa for her community support workshops for battered women. "What about that bloke who rang me up and told me the streets would run with the blood of my children if I wouldn't let him come and get his wife?" Anna: "How about the man who kidnapped his wife and kids and held them captive in a butcher's shop? And then when the police came, he hauled out his machine gun." Sally: "Wait a minute ... wait a minute ... what about the time that bloke threw his pregnant wife over the fence or the one who assaulted Barbara with a coat hanger when she stopped him from snatching his kid?" Many refuge workers burn out or give up. Each week, staff at Dee Why turn away at least six domestic violence victims because they havent got the beds. "We also turn away at least 10 homeless women", says Barbara, who, in line with most NSW refuges, has been forced to allocate beds on a triage basis. "Women who are just homeless need a home, whereas women escaping domestic violence need specialist care and protection. So the beds go to them."
In downtown Sydney at the Homeless Persons Information Centre at the Sydney City Council, staff are busy trying to create order out of chaos — juggling phones, scoring lines through diminishing lists of available womens refuges and shelters, trying to keep track of spare beds as the day draws on. The phones never shut up. "Homeless Persons, can we help you? asks centre coordinator Steve Coles with kindly meant but nevertheless sinister cheeriness: "Are there any friends or family who can take you in? ... The bailiffs coming tomorrow ... two kids ... hang on, I'll see what we can do." As the central referral service for crisis accommodation in the Sydney metropolitan area, Coles and his team of three welfare workers last year tried to find beds for more than 15,000 people made homeless by domestic violence, loss of a job, illness or eviction. Most of them were women and children. The centres statistics show the number of women seeking crisis accommodation increased by a staggering 146% over the past two years, compared to a 50% increase in men. Worse, the centre had to turn away more than 700 people in the last year because the beds weren't there. And while 640 crisis beds are available across Sydney for homeless men, there are only 72 beds for women. Coles compares the centre to an out-of-control air traffic control tower: "We spend our days here moving people to refuges all over the city". Some days, he says, the only available beds are over 100 kilometres away. And "most days", the beds run out. Women ring for accommodation, he says, as a last resort — when there are no friends or family to catch them, when the eviction team is on the doorstep, when they've been beaten once too often, when the money runs out. Theyre often already on the Department of Housing waiting lists, he says, which in NSW have up to 85,000 people banked up for up to five years. According to Coles, refuges are full of women and children who are ready to start afresh if they could find accommodation they could afford. But unless women in crisis can be moved quickly into subsidised government housing, refuges become clogged, often turning desperate women away because theyre packed to the rafters with people on interminable Department of Housing waiting lists. If the centre cant find women in crisis a place for the night, they sleep in cars, in parks, on the streets.
Iris is well known around inner city Sydney, drifting from bus stop to bus stop, befriending pigeons en route, which she feeds with stale bits of bread. Surrounded by plastic bags and parcels on a park bench in Darlinghurst, she protects herself from attack by refusing to wash. "Get stuffed", she says, declining an interview, brandishing a rolled-up newspaper to emphasise the point. According to St Vincent de Pauls family support worker Sue Chant, women like Iris are easy targets and are regularly bashed, robbed and sexually assaulted. "And in the last three months Iris condition has really deteriorated because of the weather. Her skin is weathered and shes got a constant cough. And the depression is worse. She starts crying at 8 oclock every night at the thought of facing the night." Chant and other staff at the Family Crisis Centre in East Sydney try hard to maintain their Christian tolerance toward government funding bodies. In a scene straight out of Kafka, Vinnies daily turn away desperate women from their brand new 12-bed refuge. Its bare and institutional but it cost the government nothing. Vinnies built it themselves, from their own funds. Most of the time its empty. "We built it for single women like Iris who dont fit in to normal crisis categories like single mothers or domestic violence victims", says Chant, "Its a big gap in the crisis accommodation services." Vinnies have been waiting for Department of Community Services funding for two refuge workers since 1993. They asked for $96,000 a year, which works out at about $15 dollars a head per night. In the crisis accommodation stakes, thats as cheap as it gets. "We've been told $56,000 is as much as we'll get", says Chant, "but we dont know when we'll get it and we know we wont be able to staff it properly — there'll be huge gaps of time when no-ones there to look after things". NSW minister for community services Ron Dyer says he doesn't know when the funding will come through. "Theres no doubt theres a shortage of places for women, particularly in the inner city", he says. Hes setting up a social justice committee to try to coordinate services between relevant departments like Community Services and Housing. But cynical refuge workers are asking how long it take to get things moving. They also say they want the cash — now — rather than another bundle of bureaucratic committees and red tape. "Its hard to say when things will be properly coordinated", says Dyer. "Its such a complicated business."
Jenny is about as lucky as a bashed women in Sydney gets. After years of near death experiences at the hands of her husband, Jenny took her mothers advice and headed for the Dee Why refuge. By chance, they had space that day and took her in. "The court has refused him access to the kids", says Jenny of her husband, an expert in martial arts. "The psychiatrist said in his court report that hed never spoken to a man so belligerent and menacing." "He beat her up when she was pregnant and raped her the day she came home from hospital with the baby", says Barbara, looking to Jenny for approval to tell the story. "After that she couldn't even walk. And when she first came here with the kids, one of the boys was too emotionally disturbed to talk." Barbara and the Dee Why team sprang into action on Jennys behalf, petitioning the Department of Housing for accommodation, calling the police, running her case in the Family Court, sending her sons to a child psychiatrist for trauma counselling, making cups of tea, talking to her, helping her plan a future. "If I hadn't come here", says Jenny, who stayed in the refuge for six months and now lives in her own flat, "Id probably be dead. But now my kids are happy and doing well at school. Theyre completely changed, well mannered, normal kids who aren't frightened to be away from me like they used to be."
Specialist care like this is under threat. Despite the increase in homelessness, NSW refuge funding has remained static, actually falling in real terms due to lack of CPI increases in funding levels in the past financial year. And in a statement made before he came to government in the March elections this year, Bob Dyer had been scathing of the "scandalous" behaviour of the former Department of Community Services under the Liberals, which actually failed to spend its budget for crisis accommodation over the last three years. In the 1992-3 financial year, according to figures from Dyer, the department failed to spend $2.7 million of its crisis accommodation funds allocated in the joint state-federal Supported Accommodation Assistance Program. In 1991-2, SAAP funds were underspent by $5.6 million. Now, the Womens Refuge Movement is rallying to fight proposals made in a new report commissioned by the Department of Community Services, "The Way Home". It recommends the removal of child support and follow-up workers in refuges. "Its the biggest load of shit I've heard in years", says Foster. She believes the report is an attempt by the department to explain away planned cuts to refuge funding. The report recommends that refuges scale down services by sending children to mainstream child-care centres rather than looking after them in house. It also suggests that follow-up workers (who give ongoing support around housing issues and psychological care) should be supplied from outside the refuge. "This means refuges will just become like hotels. Give them a bed when theyre beaten up, and then send them off to a separate government agency the next day for a bit of counselling. Theyre in a terrible crisis — they've left their home, often they've got no money, and their self-esteem is rock bottom. They need care on the premises, and they need it consistently. If you do it this way, it's proven the women are far less likely to go back to the violent home. "And as for getting rid of child support workers, kids in refuges are traumatised. They dont want to be separated from their mothers. Our workers are specialists in dealing with their problems and teach them how to protect themselves, identify their feelings and how to keep themselves safe. Its a load of crap suggesting we send them to day-care centres anyway, because its almost impossible to find spaces even if you wanted to." According to Dyer, both he and Premier Bob Carr are keeping abreast of the issues. In particular, he says the refuge workers are being listened to. "Last week the premier and I took a minibus tour of the refuges in the inner city", he says. "We found a refuge which was turning women away, so it seems, at least in the inner city, there may be a shortage of crisis beds." Carr has promised $50,000 to be shared somehow between St Vincent de Pauls crisis centre and Samaritan House. Its enough to pay one refuge worker in one refuge for a year. "Its unbelievable", says Foster. "These refuges cant even afford cutlery." [A version of this article first appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald.]