Monday, September 24, 2012

The effects of homelessness by Katherine

Students you might become homeless at some point or another during your studies at RMIT. It is not uncommon for students to be homeless as rents are soaring through the roof.
Melbourne is in a rental crisis and has been for quite some time.

One of my friends who is now working in a big finance company in Melbourne said that she had trouble with housing in Melbourne. Here is their story.
" I came to Melbourne from Malaysia in 2009. I had high expectations about finding housing and my feet here in Melbourne. I applied to RMIT village and got accepted. At that time the village only costs me $300 per week. On top of that they said that I would have a one bedroom apartment.
But when I got here.... I found out that RMIT Village had increase their price from $300 to $350 for one room per week. There was no one bedroom apartment ... instead I had to share with three other students in the same room. They were loud party goers and I was the quiet, shy girl that didn't want to go out. They trashed the room pretty much every night and made me clean up their mess. I told the RA at the time and he said "not my problem. Sort it out yourself" ".
"Three months had passed and I had enough of this. So I applied to move out of the village. But there was no house available. The village kept on charging me the weekly rent when there was no one to take my place. Hence I was out on the streets pretty much at night. The streets was not a nice place to live and I had stuff stolen a few times. I also had to beg for money for food and a decent shelter. Hence this took a toll on my school work and at the end I was "at risk" of exclusion. The housing service did nothing much to help me out of this situation (At that time there was a shortage of housing officers)."
"I also got attacked a few times and beaten up. I was taken to hospital"
" Eventually I went to the Couch and they sorted me out. I lived in crisis housing for a while, until I found a part time at the big finance company. And then when I got enough money I moved out into the quieter suburb of Camberwell. It was really scary to live in the streets."
" Even now I still think about this experience and it scares me so much that I don't really want to go out for dinner and night time things. I had to get counselling in the end to help me deal with my issues of homelessness. Even then there is a wait of one week. In the end I took a leave of abscence and came back"

So students make sure that you know your rights before coming to Australia. And Student Union believes that there should be more cheaper housing for students. Compass is seeing many of these homeless students. The need for cheaper places is on the rise with many people turning to emergency shelters

No comments:

Post a Comment

AGFG Recommended Blogger

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...