Last Week's Guest Speaker:
Joe Calleja from St Bartholomew's House,
"sharing the work of St Bartholomew's with those experiencing homelessness"
Guest Speaker Joe Calleja (Interim CEO at St Bartholomew's House) and Editor (Ross Jones who is in the picture because of his role as Chaplain at St Barthomolew's House)
Picture Doug Worthington
End Homelessness WA (https://www.endhomelessnesswa.com/) has been a very important alliance of organisations and people within and interested in overcoming the experience and effect of homelessness upon people. End Homelessness WA has been very important as a combined sector influence upon the State Government and there will be a State Government Report st the end of the year.
The issue of homelessness is heavily stigmatized by the general public. The effect of this characterisation is that we keep people experiencing homelessness on the streets by our judgmental attitude.
The effect of living with lives that have experienced trauma shows in the fact that 20 men 13 women in the last month attempted suicide. Men are more successful in their suicide attempt.
Western Australia has the highest representation of rough in Australia with the time spent rough sleeping on the street now up to 5.5 years.
St Vinneys sleep out gives a taste of what that is like.
There are people experiencing homelessness in remote areas, people who have been through the justice system. People who need services to aid them and who do not have access them.
The growing awareness of Veterans from the Armed Services' high suicide rate. Increaed rates of homeless among older women and with children under 12. The effect of trauma upon the person and often the mental health reaction from that experience.
Hence it is better to see Mental Health not so much as biological or genetic disease but rather as a result of a person's environmental interactions.
The way forward to recovery is through deepy listening and connection. Drug and alcohol are a symptom of disconnection ill mental health rather than being seen as the cause of that ill health.
Housing first alliances such as 50 Lives 50 Homes has shown that people who have experienced mental illness and homelessness can be sustained in their own homes at very high rate. St Bartholomew's housing first program which is funded through BHP Bulletin funding and is called Reconnecting Lives is running at 100% with residents remaining in their homes successfully.
There needs to be a change in community attitudes by the general public becoming informed.
Resources are always limited and tight with the Men's Transitional Service, called now 'Future Homes' being only partly funded by government.
The older Womens Transitional Accomodation Service currently does not receive any government funding and is funded by St Bartholomew's House with 300,000 per year, and with philanthropic contributions of 60,000 per year. The residents are 40 years plus and usually have a domestic violence environment that has led to a breakdown in their life. There iare a few who have drug and alcohol issues.
The State Government needs to fund this area of growing homelessness among older women as St Bartholomew's House cannot continue to support it longer term and philanthropists want to give in other areas.
The James Watson Centre is for men who are over 65 uyears and in need of care.
There is also a State funded mental health service accomodation run by St Bartholomew's House.
It is important to remember taht we are all potentially only 2 weeks away from the experience of homelessness. Michael Keenan was a person involved in the mining industry with a 4 million house and a company worth 30 million. Then the financial crisis came that cost him his business, his marriage, and what kept him from the homelessness services was the support that he received from his family. He is now setting up St Benedicts to bring homelessness services to people who require them within the Rockingham area.
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the tremendous work of the Rotary Clubs of Heirisson, Perth, and Perth City East and their joint committee under Ken Mullins leadership that has been working with Homeless Healthcare and St Bartholomew's House to build a Medical Recovery Centre at the old Brown Street Site. State Funding, though not the full cost, has been announced in the budget. The next stage will be that of fundraising so that people who are on the streets can receive medical help.
Rotary Quotes
2001-02 Richard D. King (law), Rotary Club of Niles (Fremont), California, USA.
Rotary vision: For Rotarians to recognize that Mankind Is Our Business.
“Rotary is of great value. It changes the course of human life. It changes the life of every Rotary beneficiary, as well as the life of each Rotarian.”
— An Uncommon Man, THE ROTARIAN, July 2001
From Lauren in Brazil
26/06/2019 A Little update
Hi All,
I realised I haven’t sent an update to Heirisson in quite a while so I just wanted to check back in and tell you what I’ve been doing!
As you’ve seen on my various Facebook posts, I’ve been very lucky to have done some incredible travel in the short four months I have been in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro and Foz do Iguaçu with various exchange students was absolutely incredible and I not only enjoyed these incredible cities and the sites they had to offer, met and got to know so many exchange students but I also learnt a lot about the history and current life of Brazil as we were accompanied by our Brazilian Rotary member; Alonso who owns the travel company we use for our tours and is incredibly educated on all the sites we visit.
This month has been filled with goodbyes as my “oldie’ exchange students prepare to leave Brazil and return to their home countries after arriving in July of 2018. I have travelled to lots of cities to bid farewell to some of the students and also participated in our final conference with all of our inbound students. My favourite part of this conference was our ’Nations Fair’ where all the students brought with them food or trinkets from their host country for us all to see. This day was a lot of fun and filed with lots of eating, laughing and of course photo taking!
My connections with Brazilians are becoming a lot more evident as my language and ability to speak is improving significantly. I watched a video today of myself speaking at my first Rotary meeting and I cringed at how awful my speaking was as I couldn’t remember the simplest things! Now I am able to hold conversations with friends and families with only minimal confusion.
I recently joined a Hip Hop dance company and have classes twice per week and have been doing lots of presentations with the company. It is hard work but lots of fun. My school holidays begin on the 27th of June and last for 6 weeks as here in Brazil there are only two semesters rather than 4 terms. I am planning on spending lots of time with my school friends as well as travelling to the cities of the oceanic exchange students who arrived in January like me and spending time with them.
I am sorry its been a while since I’ve said ‘Hi’ but am glad to share my experience and journey with you all and with the club too. I love seeing the “Heirisson Happenings” and all that you are doing to help the community and make a difference and am looking forward to what more you get up to.
For now, that’s all from me but here are a couple photos.
Lauren :)
These are all the girls in our exchange group; 22 girls from 10 different countries! (Canada, USA, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Mexico, Japan, France, Australia and Germany)
A few of the Aussies at our table for the Nations fair (complete with TimTams, Anzac cookies, lamingtons and more)
.jpg)
A photo taken from a presentation the other night of my class (I am on the far left at the back)
Once per month the “year 12” students have a dress up day at school with a theme, this month was cowboys and girls
Cartoon
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
