49-year-old SA Housing Authority tenant Mark has had a tough life, but thanks to the support he’s received from the Authority’s Housing for Health program and from other organisations, Mark is rebuilding his life and is even helping to maintain some of the Authority’s public housing properties in Whyalla.
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Mark: “I guess I started falling into using or drinking at a young age… I guess before then I really found that trying to fit into life or trying to fit into things a little bit was difficult for me, so I sort of reached out to substances or anything that anybody else was using at that point… Throughout my life it has been a struggle for identity, and it has just been – it’s been awful, actually – but it has also been a bit of a self-discovery journey in itself.
I guess by the age of my late 20s, I found it really difficult, you know – I could really keep down housing, I lost skills to be able to think of how to, I guess, work the system or what to do and I ended up homeless… I remember the first time it happened it was really terrifying; it really was.
You’re walking around completely in a daze – you don’t know what to do, or what to be, or what to say, or who to approach, or who to talk to… I guess that’s the crippling part about it – when you go into those states – because you don’t sleep, you don’t eat, and you’re just riddled with fear and you don’t know what to do.
I’ve been on and off the streets – boarding houses, homelessness, boarding houses, homelessness. I haven’t really had a rental since I was 26, so it’s always just been – a large chunky of it – sleeping rough. It got to a point only a couple of years ago, after coronavirus – I was in a house during coronavirus but I was still walking around like a bit of a zombie – and I was approached by Housing for Health. I didn’t realise but a doctor had nominated me for Housing for Health – I wasn’t aware of it and suddenly I was being approached by them and I was a bit suspicious about what was going on.
Yeah, I got housed. I was put into a supported sort of area where there were staff that were looking over me and were understanding I guess of where I had come from. I was a bit wild – well not wild but I was unskilled in living… I’ve always dreamed of what it would be like to be able to have my own little private space – somewhere where I was out of the public eye – how I’d feel, and what I’d do, and what the place would be like, and until I had experienced being in that situation it was a mystery. I saw that I wasn’t living well – I didn’t have the skills to actually look after myself or to take care of myself…
I went into rehabilitation and that helped a lot. The main motivator of that was to learn how to live properly… So now I’m quite healthy and I’ve been really putting good stuff into my ears like a lot of podcasts that are encouraging. They channelled it to me – they helped me to discover it for myself but also to lead me to it – I don’t know how to explain it properly. It was just an amazing sort of set up they had, Housing for Health. It was incredible. I guess when you’re involved in that kind of world of homelessness you don’t think it’s reachable to the rest of the world – you’re sort of stuck there, and having compassion shown to you, it was an amazing experience. I didn’t feel such a freak.
I started when I was 15, painting. I sort of held down a job pretty well right up to 27-28, and then I wasn’t able to hold a job down… but I still worked from that age and into my 30s and 40s here and there, but I was always sleeping in building sites… I was always still sleeping rough when I was working. To be working now is incredible. To be working on my addictive side and my problems in that area – it’s lovely to be able to know that I can go to work and not feel compelled to make a disaster of it.
It's good – I’ve got a real heart for it. A lot of the properties we go into are occupied, so we’re just painting a door frame here and a door there – but it’s also meeting the tenants as well. I see a lot of people that are going through similar – not similar things but who are on the edge of society a bit.
Before I got this job I was going to start studying at TAFE a little bit and maybe see if I could get into support work – something along those lines. I think it would be rewarding and also just open my eyes a bit – get me out of myself, you know.”
The End