I don’t even know if I would have survived

August 7, 2024

How CatholicCare rescued Peter from despair and homelessness

Peter never expected to be homeless.

Five years ago, he was a married father of four kids, a high-end wall paperer for Sydney’s rich and famous.

But following a breakdown in his marriage, moving out of the family home and a debilitating health problem, Peter suddenly found himself homeless, in and out of hospital, and with only a few dollars in his bank account.

“I had never been in this situation before and I didn’t know what to do,” he says.

Unable to work and being strung along between temporary accommodation options, Peter was faced with a life of uncertainty, until he was put in touch with CatholicCare Broken Bay.

“If it wasn’t for CatholicCare, I don’t know what I’d be doing,” he says. “I don’t even know if I would have survived. I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

Hailing from the United Kingdom, Peter had a good start to life. He left school at 15 to become a painter, working for a company hired by Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Cleveland Row.

He married an Australian woman and moved to Sydney in 1997. They had four children.

He moved from painting to high-rise concrete repairs, but a back injury forced him to retrain as a teacher and wallpaper installer.

Even when his marriage began to fall apart, he was able to live comfortably, maintaining a steady stream of work and teaching at TAFE.

“I had a pretty good life being single,” he says. “I was renting a nice two bedroom apartment and was busy with my work. But it was about four years ago that I got colitis too.”

Colitis is an inflammation of the colon and can severely impact the quality of life of anyone suffering from it, particularly those doing manual forms of labour. Peter still has no idea how he contracted the disease.

“It was the reason I lost my job. You just can’t continue full time work with this,” Peter says. “About 18 months ago, it was just getting so bad and so painful, I was having flare ups and I couldn’t work. I wasn’t able to pay my rent and that led to being evicted.

“The day I got evicted, the sheriff came around to change the locks and saw me in the corner of the loungeroom looking so sick and he actually called the ambulance.”

Peter spent 55 days in hospital and when he came out, was forced to seek temporary accommodation. Money and other valuables he had set aside at his previous residence had simply “disappeared” when he was evicted.

“I’d been paying tax my whole life, never had any handouts, didn’t really know what to do and I had $5 in my bank account with no idea what to do once I left the hospital,” he says.

“I had a little bit of help from social workers but not much.”

He was given a temporary place in a hotel on the Central Coast, but with only a kettle in the room to cook with, he was forced to eat noodles for four weeks straight.

“With the income I was on, you can’t afford to go out and spend $20 on fish and chips,” Peter says.

“That was the thing that really shocked, only a couple of months ago, I was healthy and working hard, and this disease just hit me and upended my life. The fact I didn’t know where I was going to be living tomorrow or the next week played a lot with my guts too.”

While in temporary accommodation, Peter ended up back in hospital suffering appendicitis, a side effect of the heavy medications he was being prescribed to treat his colitis and other ailments.

“By that time I was unable to extend stay in emergency accommodation and they put me in touch with CatholicCare,” he said.

“They sprang into action immediately. They found me accommodation, and I now have somewhere permanent to live. It’s nice, it’s clean and I can relax now this big weight is off my shoulders.”

Due to his age, CatholicCare was able to secure Peter an affordable rental in a retirement village. “I’m the young one now!” he jokes. It’s also a place where it’s safe for his kids to visit, meaning Peter gets to spend more time with his family.

CatholicCare has also been able to help him access other support services and get him to his appointments. “They’ve just gone that extra mile,” he says. “I didn’t have any furniture and they’ve helped me out with that too.”

Sean MacKinnon Practice Manager, Homelessness & Housing, Central Coast at CatholicCare says he expects more people like Peter will be forced into homelessness in the next few months as house prices, rents and the cost-of-living soars.

“In the last eight weeks, there’s been 70 to 100 groups in temporary accommodation every night and that’s almost a 250 per cent increase from this time last year,” he says.

Sean says while homelessness is increasing, Government funding for services hasn’t risen to fill the void. He also says it’s important to give people dignity.

“Even though we’re just an accommodation provider, we’re trying to grab the ball and drive it more and really help people with what they actually need. We’re not funded to do all the extra bits and pieces.”

“The expectation on the services is phenomenally high. We’re trying to set a good standard for the sector which is what I feel our community needs,” says Sean.

Peter says he wants to start volunteering at Mary Mac’s Place in Woy Woy once he feels more settled and his health improves, to serve people who have also found themselves homeless or facing the uncertainty of temporary accommodation.

“There’s going to be a lot more people in my position in the next year and hopefully, using my experience, we can help more people out!”

If you, or someone you know is experiencing homelessness please call 1800 324 924, email info@catholiccaredbb.org.au or check out our website for more information.