[INTRO]: Hi there. You’re about to hear stories from people with lived experience of homelessness, housing insecurity and poverty. As these storytellers reveal, they never imagined that any of these terrible things would happen to them. But they do believe that it could happen to anyone, and that it is the responsibility of everyone to care for the people going through it. 

These stories reflect on experiencing a broken system. Although these struggles happened many years ago for some of them, their stories were ironically recorded during Australia’s cost-of-living crisis in 2023, when homelessness and poverty remain as relevant as ever for many modern families. Here, our storytellers share what they believe needs to change about that system. 

Funded by Anglicare WA and produced by Centre for Stories, these stories were recorded on Bindjareb Nyungar boodjar. We pay our respect to Nyungar Elders, and all Nyungar Elders from the beginning, who are the knowledge-keepers and custodians of this place. This is Lisa’s story. 

LISA: Hi, my name’s Lisa. I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself and hopefully you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel too. My story started about 20 years ago now. I had just left domestic violence, wasn’t very happy in the relationship. Quite broke, moved town. We moved from Mandurah down to Collie. Stayed down there for a couple of years. We did sell our house, but back then 20,000 wasn’t a lot of money. Still wasn’t on Centrelink, still hadn’t had a job, so things were a little bit tight when we first moved. So, we had to you know, re-buy all the furniture ‘cause we left the house with just the clothes on our back. And then there was just myself and my three children at the stage. They were eight, three and turning five, I think they were roughly. 

So, we lived in Collie for a few years. Still had the trauma myself, the trauma of the domestic violence and still the threats that come through, still the, you know, “I’m going to shoot you when you’re asleep, I’m gonna come and steal the kids,” all that jargon that comes with it. And a few years later my dad had passed away. And I happened to be watching Lion King and it came through that, the old thing from Mufasa that said, ‘remember who you are’. Something as simple as that set off a light bulb in my head and it’s like, do you know what? You are not gonna rule my life anymore. So, I made massive changes, went to counseling, ‘cause I never thought of going to counseling as such a thing, but if you have the opportunity, do it, ‘cause it just gets it all off your chest. 

So, I started doing that. My dad passed away. We got a little bit of inheritance, so we moved back to Mandurah, started all over again. Brought all new furniture, new stuff, new school, new life. I went and studied Aged Care. Didn’t like that very much ‘cause it was all around death, around that stage of life. So I wanted something just a bit more vibrant. So I went complete opposite and I did community services. I studied that for 18 months. I was very nervous, had no confidence, very scared about doing it. Didn’t think I could finish it. When it came to placement, I pretty much vomited all the way to the placement door. And I walked into Anglicare seven, nearly eight years ago now. And I saw my beautiful coworkers that I still have now. And without them I don’t think me and my family would be where we are today. 

Well, when I left like 20 years ago, there wasn’t a lot of services out there. Like there wasn’t OVIS, there wasn’t like you could go to your bank and get a loan and things like that. I believe that the real estates need to be a bit more compassionate. With my story there was a little bit more into it, which I won’t go into. So, we had to leave ‘cause his name was on the lease. So, if the government have these, we need more safe places for women to go pretty much. ‘Cause when you leave, you leave with nothing. We just had a bag of clothes each and I had three kids. Didn’t take their toys, didn’t take anything. So, when people go, oh you had $20,000. Yeah, but outta that $20,000 I had to clothe them, feed them, find a rental and not being on any Centrelink at that time. 

And even being on Centrelink, you know, there hasn’t changed the amount. Still skyrocketing. And the rentals were expensive back then too. Like we didn’t have any luxuries. There was no sports, no dance lessons, no nothing. It was just pretty much living. You learn to budget, you know, like so you have cheaper meals but you know, you could have a treat every now and then, but nothing, no holidays, no still even to this day, there’s no holidays! Pretty much working to pay the bills. But we are a little bit more secure and my mental health, like when you’re going through crisis, you can’t concentrate, you can’t think five steps ahead. You could just think one step at a time. Then you’ve gotta look after your babies and go through their emotions ‘cause they’ve just lost one parent who they think is just the bee’s knees. And of course you don’t wanna burst their bubble. So there needs to be more instant mental health support, more agencies being able to support the mums when they leave. There was no such thing as a safety plan back then. I had $50 in a wallet when I first left and that was it. Whereas now they’ve got safety plans. But contact your local services because, even parenting services, ‘cause they will know where to where to turn you. 

At the moment, I’ve got my mother, myself, my two grandsons and their fiancés living with us, and two dogs and three cats and fish. But if we were to apply for rentals, like I’m not, I’m not a multimillionaire, but I earn enough to say I should be able to get a rental. But the cheapest rental out there is like $600. That’s over half my pay. They wouldn’t even look at me. They won’t even look at my young adults, who I know are good tenants. But because they’re young, there’s no houses. There’s lack of affordability in everything. The rent’s gone up, the water’s gone up, the food’s gone up, but Centrelink has not, Centrelink is still the same budgetary amount and people say yeah, it’s not there to be lived on. No, you don’t live, you just survive on Centrelink. 

There’s no, “let’s go and go to a party or a concert” or you know, “come on kids, let’s go to the zoo.” We couldn’t even afford to go to the zoo, you know, because it was just so expensive. You know, like even things of making, somebody goes, oh we love taco night. My kids didn’t have tacos until we moved here and I got a full-time job because we couldn’t afford it. The salad was so expensive! So they, our cheap night was sausages and cheesy sausages for the cheap. But it’s, yeah, and it’s still the same wherever you go, like even talking to the families now, they’re just surviving. And no one in this day and age should just have to just survive. But yeah, we need more money to help the women leave, support during the leaving, because when you are in the domestic violence, you know the routine, you know if they’re gonna be a happy drunk or a sad drunk, but once you move out, you’ve got no control. None. ‘Cause you don’t know when they’re gonna rock up. If they’re gonna rock up, if they’re going to keep threatening you, you know, duck because I’m about to shoot you. So then you are all just duck. ‘Cause you don’t know, you don’t know. It’s scarier once you leave, put it that way. And that’s why a lot of women do stay, ‘cause it’s safer, ‘cause they know the routine and they’ve got nowhere to go. Like where do you go with even five children? There is nowhere to go. So, they stay.  

Only about maybe four or five years ago, believe it or not, was when I went to talk to young youth and they were saying that I’ve seen my mum with domestic violence et cetera, et cetera. They asked me to have a talk to them and I said, yeah, no worries. And it wasn’t till then I thought, I’ve got this, I can do this, I can be an adult. My kids are safe, I can leave them. And you know, he doesn’t know where we are, so it doesn’t matter anymore. You know, he doesn’t matter anymore, doesn’t frighten me. So, he can keep sending his threatening texts and now I just delete and don’t even keep them. I used to keep them for court reasons if we needed to go to court, now I’ll just go delete.   

So, I’m not a multimillionaire, but I’ve got enough to have a roof, enough to pay bills, can’t afford private health insurance, that sort of thing. So, I’m in the middle, but that was the light at the end of my tunnel. We are surviving. Cost of living’s still expensive. I’ve still got my two adult children and their fiancés living at home. Bit squishy but we manage ‘cause they still get to have a life as well. The trauma’s still there, but I know the triggers now, I know how to work through that. So yeah, so if you’re going through a rough patch, just remember who you are. Just remember who you were before. Don’t let anyone take your sunshine away. 

OUTRO: Thank you for listening. This story collection was funded by Anglicare WA and produced by Centre for Stories. You can head to anglicarewa.org.au to learn more about their impact in driving positive change for those in need, as well as listen to the other stories in this collection. Centre for Stories is a not-for-profit organization with charitable status. Our team is small and nimble, and we love what we do. To help us to continue to support diverse storytellers, consider a small donation. You can donate at centreforstories.com. This podcast was produced by Luisa Mitchell, with story training from Sukhjit Khalsa, and sound engineering by Mason Vellios. Thank you.