Steven's story
When Steven came to Homelink, he had been living in a night shelter for around eighteen months. Before that, he stayed with friends in the area but felt after a while that he couldn't impose on their hospitality any more.
I studied fine craftsmanship and furniture making; and I've gradually moved more into commercial, more site based building projects. Becoming homeless all just came totally unexpected. Quite a whole heap of things happened at once - my relationship broke down, that involved my accommodation, and then my work dried up. I went from earning a very comfortable income, as far as I knew my relationship was fine. Then one thing upsets you and knocks your confidence and then it makes you less able to deal with the next crisis that comes up. Since then I've had two or three months work with various building projects, so I've been signing on, signing off, signing on again. I ended up in a night shelter. You have to be there between 8 and 9 o'clock every evening and then you have to leave between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning.
Most of the people there resort to drinking or taking drugs just so as they can obliterate that time really, until they can get back to a safe environment. If you don't get up in the morning and go out to work, you just end up wandering the streets. You've just got to find something to do. Visit friends, go to the library, go to a museum, far, far away so you've got a long bus trip home and you can read a book or a newspaper. It's just difficult, not having a key to your own door and being able to come in, cook dinner and relax, plan the next day.
I've seen a lot of things that I would never have chosen to be part of my life, but they are now. You know, it's not a good thing, but there's always something positive. Some things are just thoroughly negative and you never want them to happen again, but you can always learn something, always make something good out of it. Even if it's a totally negative experience, at least you know to avoid it.
