About Us
This article written by Maddonna King of the Courier Mail in Brisbane best explains why we do what we do.
December 01, 2007It was just a stone's throw away from the one you visited up here in Brisbane before the campaign started, but it didn't really qualify as a shelter. Actually it was a car park.
And a few nights a week, Pastor John Dowell and a group of volunteers drive into it with a van packed with food.
I went on Wednesday night, as the heavens struggled to contain the rain.
Not that this seemed to dampen the crowd. Men. Women. Young. Old. One couple. About 60 of them turned up and moved straight into two neat lines.
All were dressed well. All wore shoes. One, wearing his work clothes, had just finished his shift with the Brisbane City Council.
It was the first night for a couple of them. Others had come every night since Pastor John first drove into the Spring Hill car park four years ago. 
He's seen so much. "You expected a junkie, with a needle in his arm, didn't you?" he asked.
Most of our homeless aren't like that. Many are mentally ill. Some lost their job, fell behind in rent, and drank the rest of it in booze.
Others, mostly men, suffered divorce, and then depression.
Locked out of their children's lives they didn't much care where they slept. And they haven't picked themselves up since.
Imagine being homeless, but needing identification such as a birth certificate to gain work.
"I don't even know where to get one, or how much it costs. A birth certificate when I don't know where I'm sleeping is not a big priority you understand?"
Eugene. Paul. Tom. Sam. Harry. Brad. Karen. Those names are made up. They offered them, but it didn't really seem important to focus on spelling and not their plight. You don't come to a car park, in drizzling rain on a Wednesday night, for a picnic.
"I got cut off from social security in January, need my birth certificate, and don't know where it is," Paul said.
He has a job now, desperately wants to rent a place but can't imagine getting the hundreds of dollars required for a bond.
"I'm here because I gamble," Brad said. "Really bad. It's got me into all sorts of trouble."
Ian had heard of the homework you set. He voted for you. "Tell those politicians how it bloody well is. In Sydney, they know (the) homeless exist so there's lots of places. You try getting into a place here. You can't."
Tom wanted to know if you could make housing more affordable. He struggled in Melbourne, came up here in the hope it was cheaper. And found it wasn't.
It's Brad's 26th birthday. Some party. He was in a half-way home, got caught playing around with the fire extinguisher the night before and was kicked out for three months.
He heads off this Wednesday night, not sure whether to turn right or left on to St Paul's Tce, as he looks for a dry spot to camp in.
Peter lost his children in an ugly family court case, and turned to alcohol.
"Nothing matters now. It just doesn't matter to me."
I ask where he eats on nights Pastor John is not there. "I don't," he said.
On any one night, more than 100,000 homeless people struggle to survive in our country and almost one in four of them now live in our state.
Our growth boom has added to the problem. The region is growing rapidly, but accommodation options are not.
Dozens of homeless, many of them women escaping violent homes, are turned down at shelters every night of the week. They are given a blanket, an apology and sent on their way. 
Whole families live in the backs of cars. Pastor John has met them, when even the kids line up for a feed.
In fact, he's served 100,000 meals in this one car park. To lawyers and engineers, too.
"The stereotype of a junkie is just wrong," Pastor John says. "They're homeless because of a marriage breakdown, or they're a new arrival, or they have a health problem."
