If you don't have your own place, if you're out there doing it rough with nowhere to sleep, you've got to have a shower. You need to have a wash.
If you can't get clean, there are all these other issues that go with it, like low self-esteem, because you don't feel quite able to do things without people staring at you — judging you — because you look dirty.
We can't do our washing, basic things like that, as it costs a lot of money. You add up the cost of going to the laundromat for a fortnight — all of us are on Centrelink — that's pretty much half our wage.
If the council can come on board and even have a chat with the police, some of these organisations like Aboriginal Medical Service, the men's group, the women's shelters, if they could get together and host a little forum. We could get a couple of people to represent the homeless people to speak out their concerns.
We've told council that staying at the showgrounds is our only option. If we were to go and camp at the beach, that's all very well and good, but we've still got to live. We've still got to find work. We've got no transport, some people can't even read and write, or they don't have a licence.
These are some of the obstacles that we face.
Discrimination is the biggest hurdle. We are just trying to live. We can't make up people's minds about how they feel, but we would like them to understand.
Council has a lot of volunteer workers, some of whom collect camping fees. I don't see why they can't come up and open the showers, before hours. If we respect the showers, keep everything clean and work in partnership with them, I don't see why there's an issue.
They only use those showers once a week for football. People seem to think that because we are dirty we are disgusting, but that's discrimination.
It's good that we have access to doctors, dentists, that sort of stuff. That's what we need and it's everybody's right to have that. To have all this water here that's not being used, well, we'd only need it to be open four hours, and we don't mind if we have a shower every two days.
We'd prefer to shower every day, but we need to meet them halfway to find a solution that makes it easy for them.
I've got six children. I lost my wife, went through depression, started drinking a lot and that fed the depression.
I'm trying to get out of that, but at the same time I'm facing obstacles that make it difficult to meet the needs of being a normal person.
Sometimes I feel like scum and I shouldn't have to feel like that.
Contributed with assistance from the Shoalhaven Homeless Hub.
