No doubt we've all been appalled by recent CCTV footage of people walking past a homeless man as he died of stab wounds on a New York pavement. Hugo Tale-Yax had attempted to intervene in a violent altercation between a man and a woman and was stabbed and left to die as a result. What is worse, security footage shows that over the four hours he lay there, many people walked past his dead or dying body.
People walking past a dead or dying homeless man is a tragedy, by which we are right to be appalled. But what compounds this tragedy is the frequency with which we all continue to walk past living homeless people, often with little or no more regard than was shown Hugo Tale-Yax.
While Australians wring our hands at a story like Tale-Yax's and click our tongues disapprovingly at those who walked past him, 105,000 people still go homeless every night in our country. Only a small percentage of these are living on the streets, with most couch-surfing with friends or relatives, or living in unsafe, insecure or temporary accommodation. Yet housing occupancy in Australia stands at an average of 1.2 people per house. That means the vast majority of homes are single occupancy, if not entirely empty.
Of course, reducing the incidence of homelessness is far more complex than merely providing people with a roof over their heads. But relying solely on government to do all the work is irresponsible and hypocritical. No doubt the Rudd government has to do more if it is serious about its target of halving homelessness by 2020, but when we live in the eighth most wealthy country in the world it is something for which we can all take responsibility.
Making poverty history often means making poverty personal, with all the cost and inconvenience that comes along with it. Only then do we begin to learn the complexities of people's lives and the social dynamics which reinforce and entrench disadvantage, from addiction and mental illness to social apathy and ingrained affluence.
My community has been offering a free lunch in the heart of Melbourne's CBD for about 15 years. We've sought to 'make poverty personal' by offering hospitality in the form of a free lunch, often sharing it with some of the city's most marginalised people. This simple act of