| Home Archived by the National Library of Australia Homeless Hot Gossip 14 Latest 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Oldest Fan Mail Send your latest insights to [email protected] Messages posted from 9 June 2009 to present The most recent message appears at the top. Last Posting: Monday 13 July2009 Good Food Wasted Using Children - whatever happened to John Green? Interesting peope who go to Fred's Van Latest Guest Book Entries 13 July 2009 Guest Book Archive This page full. Please go to Hot Gossip Page 15 That Coffee Machine Patrons using the new coffee machine say the beverage is too thick. One person said it tastes like bitumen and you have to water it down. Good coffee depends on the quality of coffee beans and whether the machine is cleaned regularly. The machine is probably worth a small fortune, perhaps more than the value of the cars that some of the clients live in. 13 July 2009 Krusher goes underground Krusher Karl, Private Investigator has adopted deep cover for his newest mission. He hasn�t been seen at Magdalene Centre, Fred�s Van or Hindmarsh Square for two weeks. He went underground just after the WestCare cook broke her leg. Rumour has it Karl has ideas about how the �accident� happened. Late Flash: Krusher has re-emerged and was seen hiding in the Teen Challenge Truck as the Jasmin Restaurant Meal. 13 July 2009 Miller�s Court Flash Don, the power behind the throne has taken over at WestCare while the Queen recuperates from her busted leg. He has also appointed himself as �Lance Armstrong�s� personal trainer. Lance ordered a second bowl of soup from the server this week at lunch but �the Flash�, seeing the evil event, raced across the room to try and stop it. Too late, Lance had already taken possession of it. 13 July 2009 WestCare Cook Busts Leg The WestCare cook broke her leg. It is not known which leg and whether the hip has been affected. It happened at home. This means she can�t get WorkCover. Richard announced it at church on Sunday. She will be off work for two months. We wish Jayne a speedy and complete recovery. 7 July 2009 Hiding the statistics The Housing in Focus report prepared by HousingSA, and replacing the Trust in Focus annual review has been delayed two months from release. This report shows how many houses HousingSA has been selling off. My source in the Department of Families and Communities says it has been sitting on the desk of Jennifer �Rankles� Rankine, the Minister of Housing for two weeks, at least. But she won�t give it the �okay� for release. 7 July 2009 Krusher Karl PI Rumour has it that Krusher Karl, Private Investigator, has been making certain enquiries using his famous technique of asking people the same question on many occasions, hoping that repetition will produce some morsel of memory from deep in the person's mind. 7 July 2009 Poopsie-at-Large Poopsie was getting sick of being confined to the expensive protected community provided by her new boyfriend. She called "R" asking him to pick her up and drive her to see some of the old crowd. "R" did this. Then the church woman told people the amphetamine cook's gang might kidnap "R" and torture him until he told them where Poopsie lived. "R" became so concerned that he called his mother who agreed to raise her own gang of Greek relatives and attack the amphetamine cook and his gang. But the church woman asked why would the amphetamine cook want to find out where Poopsie lived when he had been trying to get rid of her so he wouldn�t kill her? Therefore, "R" was not in danger and Momma didn't need to raise a gang. This seemed logical and "R" relaxed. The church woman then felt incumbent to admit she had started the rumour that "R" might get kidnapped. "R" forgave her and all is well. 5 July 2009 George, George of the Jasmin Word has it that George, the Chef at the Jasmin Restaurant is telling the Teen Challenge crowd that only �homeless� people should get the free meal. If the numbers aren�t brought down then they will stop supplying the food. The difficulty here is determining who actually is �homeless� and what constitutes being �homeless�: whether it is living outside or living in a rooming house. And whether people tell the truth. One can�t criticise George for this attitude because the numbers have been skyrocketing, lately. The problem is that the Jasmin Restaurant food is just too good. 2 July 2009 Krusher on Charm Offensive Krusher Karl from WestCare is reportedly on a charm offensive. Hard men in the homeless scene, never before intimidated by Krusher, are stunned by the change. All we need now is a Krusher Karl coffee machine review. 2 July 2009 Cheaper Haircuts My hairdresser gave me a $1.00 discount. Just as she was using the straight razor I began talking about organ transplanting. She said sorry. 30 June 2009 "Spokes" Di Bacco comes across with the goods A one-hundred cup coffee machine arrived at WestCare recently. The snippet was in the celebrity section of the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper last Monday, 22 June. Sam "Spokes" Di Bacco and his employer, Di Bella Coffee donated it to WestCare. "Spokes" rides bicycles, but wouldn't be a match against the homeless scene's "Lance Armstrong"? Not a chance. But he's good with coffee machines. The little Advertiser article quotes Westcare "Kitchen Manager", Jayne H., (the snippet uses her full name), "The clients all love it, it just smells like a smart caf� in here now." One client "loving it" phoned me saying now all WestCare needs was "smart food". The machine is kept in the Day Room, incredibly. There will be lots of people keeping an eye on the machine so it doesn't end up in the kitchen. The snippet had a photo of "Spokes" Di Bacco looking through the wheel of his bicycle. There wasn't a photo of Ms Jayne H. "Spokes" raised money last year for "heart walkers for children with cerebral palsy." He seems a decent fellow. You can imagine the gnashing of teeth this gift caused at Byron Place and Hutt Street. Ian Cox will need a new set of caps. Marj will be up on the roof. "Spokes" better get a silent number. 29 June 2009 Sister Gwen and Sister Lynette of Hutt Street Centre Proof that austerity, age and dedication bring wisdom. Sister Pauline is another gem, providing there isn' a baseball bat in her swinging arm. 25 June 2009 Parking Instructions "Don�t park next to the footpath," the elderly woman told me. A restraint order was placed on the amphetamine "cook" stopping him from entering the land around the HousingSA units. But a car parked near the edge of the property could still be damaged by someone still on the public footpath. It should be stated that his guilt hasn't been proven. 25 June 2009 Wasted resources "Closed for two years; empty children's room, clothing room, computer room, kitchen, bathroom, washing machine, not used. No meals for Aboriginals, anymore. It's just a phone centre." Description of Karpandi Women�s Centre building owned by WestCare 25 June 2009 Afton House Afton House, now called "The Terraces", now take couples. Presumably we're talking about man and woman couples. 25 June 2009 Assuming Control A man was banned from WestCare for fighting in Wright Street, which is public property. This is similar to shopping centres where guards falsely assume that the public land immediately outside the shopping centre is also under their jurisdiction. 25 June 2009 Client confidentiality "Confidentiality of client details pathetic. They sit out in the yard and talk to anyone about anyone." WestCare, by a client 25 June 2009 Another Hutt Street fundraising initiative A new client at the Hutt Street Centre went through their documentation process for lunch. A male staff member looked through his identification then asked questions while a woman took his money. He paid a five-dollar note but in the confusion of the ID presentation she forgot to give change. When he asked for the change she said she thought she gave it to him. He told her she hadn't and she replied: "Are you sure?" Then she returned the three-dollars change. He laughed at that one. 23 June 2009 Krusher Karl�s spear finds its mark �How could you turn on your own kind, ****?� Krusher Karl at the Jasmin Restaurant meal in Hindmarsh Square in response to the WestCare criticism. 23 June 2009 Common belief A veteran in the homeless scene, and one who has not previously been quoted here, and also a happy client of WestCare, told me yesterday that "It was well known for years that the cook at WestCare was knocking off the food. You could see her car parked there late at night." He added, "There's a bit going on at Hutt Street but they're trying to keep it quiet." I wasn't part of the conversation and had never met the speaker previously. 23 June 2009 Training required An informant says that at one welfare joint that serves food the staff clean the tables by spraying the food crumbs on the table then smearing the dissolved food all over the table. Yum. 23 June 2009 Unconscious behaviour A man paying for his own lunch at Hutt Street Centre wanted also to pay for the-Ghost-who-walks, still outside, but the woman and the interrogation counter said, "Your friend can pay for himself." Sometimes welfare staff don't know they're doing it. 23 June 2009 No hanging around, thanks Hutt Street Centre offers breakfast, lunch, showers, RDNS but most of their others services are not available to anyone under 21 years of age. Isn't that age discrimination? 23 June 2009 Those horrible Byron Place shower doors I was in an individual shower cubicle/room at the Byron Place Community Centre. It contained a shower, toilet and hand basin. I pushed the door shut. It doesn't fit properly so it was hard to close. When it was time to leave there wasn't a handle to pull it open so I grabbed the bottom of the door and pulled it open. A small complaint, admittedly. The hand dryer didn't work. It seems to have been busted for a few years. What's the point in having it? There aren't paper towels or soap dispensers. A number of clients have hepatitis A and B that can be transmitted by germs to the mouth (unlike Hep C). Byron Place offers towels but these are mostly for those having showers. Paper towels are better for washing hands, certainly better than the air dryer even if it wasn't busted. The padded chairs in the fish aquarium are dirty and ripped right down the middle so you get that old crumbling foam on your trousers. Sometimes you can detect a new odour to your clothing after sitting in the chairs. This is a very small complaint but why do these places, which have a tight but reasonable budget, not clean and repair basic fixtures and furniture. There are numerous talented and skilled workers in the homeless scene. Hiring one or two to maintain standards could be both a therapeutic activity for them and an improvement for the clients. Payments for this work could be negotiated. 23 June 2009 Business is business Numerous people sorting donated charity clothing have told me the good stuff is sold in the charity's' shops while the lousy rags are sent to the free clothing rooms. 23 June 2009 Franz Kafka and Whitmore Square Czech writer, Franz Kafka wrote a dozen novels in the 1930's. They often featured an average person accused by authority of an unspecified crime that the authority wouldn't reveal. The prisoner had to guess and then confess. In one book it didn't matter what the prisoner said, they killed him anyway. On his death bed, Kafka ordered a friend to burn his unpublished books, but instead the friend sent them to a publisher. The rest is publishing history. The Kafkaesque connection with the Adelaide homeless scene is that WestCare has steadfastly refused to tell the man they kicked out for twelve-months the reason why. After twelve-months he returned but after a humiliating scene they ordered him to leave or they'd call the police - no reasons given. He recently met secretly with three Baptist WestCare executives at their Head Office in Norwood. The executives indicated they'd consider letting him return to the government-funded two-dollar lunches if he'd apologise. But they wouldn't say to whom or for what though near the end of the meeting one executive let slip that the apology should be regarding Jayne H., the cook. The man asked a dozen times what they required him to apologise for but they wouldn't tell him; he had to guess. And even if he guesses right they haven't agreed to then let him return. Could Jayne's ex-husband be right and the apology is for wearing short shorts and exposing his "loose nuts". 19 June 2009 Police as the enemy A man living in Adelaide's homeless scene says that many complain about the police but he says that if it wasn't for the police these people wouldn't exist. He says many in the homeless scene would be attacked and killed by both minority thugs in the homeless scene and from the general population. 19 June 2009 Gambling "I took myself off the dole for a year. No money. It was the only way I could break myself from gambling. It worked." 19 June 2009 End of an era? "Enough is enough. I slept outside long enough." An old phlegmatic man at Byron Place Community Centre 19 June 2009 Teeth de-luxe Rachel of Fred's Van, etc has new teeth. They look pretty good except when they fall out. She's going back to the dental joint to have them "fixed". Rachel makes most people feel a little happier than before they saw her. 19 June 2009 Loose Nuts A select source within the homeless scene said he heard Krusher Karl telling someone that the reason the cook at WestCare demands that an older male client be banned forever is because he wears short shorts and she hates seeing his nuts hanging out. 18 June 2009 Man charged A Port Adelaide man has been summons to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court for the offence of "behaving in an offensive manner". He displayed on 16 January 2009, during the Israeli offensive in Gaza, a placard on the side of the road in Norwood. The placard read: "Is Gaza Auschwitz Lite?" The other side of the placard showed an Israeli flag with a swastika painted in the middle. The man is of mixed English and Arab descent. The man's lawyers have requested copies of file and notebook records from the police. This is part of the accepted pre-trial "Discovery" process. This request to date has been ignored. The hate crime is expected to drag on for a year or two. 18 June 2009 Breeding ground for corruption The Department of Families and Communities still won't release the Adelaide CBD homeless statistics to the public, one month after Minister, Jennifer "Rankles" Rankine selectively released some of them. It seems they fear public scrutiny, particularly from Kris Hanna, MP and the media. 18 June 2009 Shonky Taps The taps go backwards or in odd ways at Byron Place Community Centre. The Calvinistic "rough sleeper" said he figured a plumber came in to fix them and someone "mouthed off" at him so he made the taps work backward. 18 June 2009 Housing SA scandal (ho hum) A man visiting Plympton regularly said he watched a street of Housing Trust houses empty as the older tenants died or moved to retirement homes. The government renovated the houses, he said, but left them empty whereupon thieves stole the hot water systems and copper piping. The government renovated them a second time and again failed to find occupants so the thieves stripped them bare, again. Finally, the government sold the houses without water heaters. The process spanned five-years, the man told me. 18 June 2009 Poopsie after dark A neighbour, not the one the amphetamine "cook" put in hospital, said she saw Poopsie and a friend siphoning petrol from Poopsie's car the day before it was torched. The hypothesis is that Poopsie torched her own car to gain sympathy, but didn't want the thing to go up with a full tank of juice. Regardless, two other cars were damaged. Poopsie's cars usually came to a sticky end. The "cook" is the main suspect. He allegedly says he's protecting Poopsie from getting caught by the police by disabling her cars because she doesn't have a driving license. Meanwhile, the elderly church woman who was landed in this scene by HousingSA says the most recent car torching has increased communication with non-HousingSA neighbours. "They wave and say hello, now," she says. 17 June 2009 John Green Rumour has it that homeless scene predator John Green is in a Care Facility in Elizabeth. The report isn't confirmed. What is a Care Facility? 17 June 2009 Entrepreneurs A couple of HousingSA tenants developed an idea that could have been cooked up by John Green. They ordered drugs by phone then robbed the dealers when they arrived at night with the goods. Except the last time when one dealer pulled out a big knife and put one of them in hospital. 17 June 2009 Border hopping WestCare sent a volunteer with $300 to Coles to buy food voucher Gift Cards that they give to welfare clients. They never saw him again. Heard he crossed the border. That was the last time they used a volunteer for the job. From then on a paid employee named Barry White did that. 17 June 2009 Hutt Street Centre fundraising initiative Razors cost 20 cents at Hutt Street Centre while they're free at Byron Place Community Centre. The man at Byron Place even turns his head when you take one, or two. Is Hutt Street Centre making a profit from their single blade razors? Perhaps they're afraid that men with beards would hoard daily free razors and sell them on the street like that blue-eyed chain smoker outside the Central Markets two years ago. 16 June 2009 Kerla Yerlo meal no good Kerla Yerlo of Largs North, across the road from the beach and Largs Pier, offer a free lunch at the St Pauls on-the-stumps church in Port Adelaide. The lunch venue is on the corner of St Vincent Street and Nelson Street. It's supposed to be for Nungas, but the anti-discrimination laws mean they have to serve everyone. I went there with a Koori and we expected something pretty good. The "lunch" was soup and old bread. It was served at the back of the church hall by, apparently young women. There were a couple of tables and plastic chairs but the latter were all stacked up, not for sitting on. It seemed they expected clients stand and drink the soup. Two women went in ahead of us, but I can't remember if they stayed or not. I think I saw one of the Kerla Yerlo women ladling soup. No where to sit and the hall was so cold and the doors open. At the outer end of the hall there were a few shelves of old books and stuff that were from the Op Shop in another room. After seeing the situation the Koori and I pissed off without lunch. We agreed it was might become a useful social occasion for people in Port Adelaide, but as it was it seemed really horrible. It's 11am to 2pm Fridays. 16 June 2009 Minister Jennifer Rankine on the Magill Training Centre (children's prison). Interview on ABC-5AN with Mathew Abraham and David Bevan on 15 June 2009 Mathew Abraham: "Are you going to do anything to make the conditions inside the Magill Training Centre humane? Minister Rankine: "Okay, well, let's, let's just, um, be clear about a couple of things. First and foremost it isn't the bricks and mortar, um, that make for a good and strong family and it isn't bricks and mortar that make for good rehabilitation programs. We've got great rehabilitation programs and great staff working in the centre and there has been no criticism by either the Guardian [of children] or Monsignor Cappo about, about, uh, the staff or the programs that we operate with. Mathew Abraham: "So you're effectively saying they're wrong there because if it's not bricks and mortar and if it's how they're treated and you're saying they're treated very well and things well there then there's not a problem. Minister Rankine: What I'm saying is, you know, a lot of these young people come from, um, very, um, disturbing backgrounds and what, the best outcome for children is to be from a very strong and loving family, um, um, irrespective of the house you live in. What's the most important thing for these young people is, is good services and good staff and that's what they're getting. In relation to what needs to be done to the building in the short term there is money in the budget, um, for us to access to make sure we bring the building up to an appropriate standard, now, now, um there are obvious a number of things that weren't done at Magill because we were looking forward to 2011 when a new centre would be opened. We have to re-visit that now and there are funds in the budget for that. Mathew Abraham: "What needs fixing there because you said the care is good there and it's not a problem with bricks and mortar because the most important thing is care. Everyone would agree with that�but you say things have to be done� what precisely minister�do you need to knock a few widows in there; or put some carpet down, a lick of paint� Minister Rankine: "Well, there, there, there are, there are some maintenance issues that need to be addressed that weren't, um, urgent in line of the fact we were moving out of the building in a couple of years but those, we have to re-visit those and, um, the department's preparing a proposal for me. We are taking that to Cabinet for consideration. Mathew Abraham: "Okay, sorry, I apolgise. You're taking that to Cabinet. What sort of things are we talking about; are we just talking about a lick of paint or�" Minister Rankine: "Awe, in some instances it maybe some paint; it may be some plumbing upgrades; it may be some, you know, some issues around that, it may be, um, some of the amenities of the, of the building. There's a range of things we'll be looking at�" David Bevan: "Minister, will you allow anyone from the media perhaps by way of a pooling arrangement, because you don't want to turn it into a media circus, but somebody to go in there and take some pictures so that our listeners can make up their own mind because they've got the Social Inclusion Commissioner and the Guardian for Children saying it breaches international standards and should be bulldozed and the government is saying it's satisfactory. Minister Rankine: "That request was put to the department last week when I was up on the APY Lands. The people that are responsible for the care of these children, their decision was that it wasn't in their interest for the media to go in and I see no reason to override that decision. David Bevan: "So it effectively remains a secret institution. Minister Rankine: "It remains the same sort of institution that all of our prisons remain and that's not a secret institution because we have people who go in their all the time: Cappo goes in there; the Guardian goes in there; Families go in there and visit these children. David Bevan: "But people who have been in there says it's inhumane and we'll just leave it at that." Minister Rankine: "Well, what I'm, what I'm telling you is I think what, what people are referring to, um, is, is the age of the building. It's not model that we would have in a, um, a juvenile detention facility. The way we treat children now is very different how we treated when we detained offenders in the 1960's." ******************** But what actually happens there by means of "bricks and mortar" or treatment bny guards is still a secret. 16 June 2009 Empty buildings, empty rhetoric Two large blocks of units sit empty at the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre at Northfield. They used to be nurses� flats but were closed down by the government. The windows have all been broken but the buildings look solid � and empty. Empty government property. They could be rehabilitated or just cleaned up and used as a safe haven for people living outside in the CBD who want to find a safer abode. 15 June 2009 Ian Cox Fashions "Fantastic assortment of clothes at extremely low prices." Description in one of their leaflets of the Hutt Street Centre Op Shop. The only person who looks appropriate in Op Shop clothing is Greg Calder of Street-to-home. The mishmash of outdated styles reflect nicely off his facial expression while also matching his coiffure. 15 June 2009 Uh, oh A client phoned WestCare head office to complain about an employee at WestCare's homeless centre in Miller's Court near Whitmore Square. The employee's wife picked up the phone. 15 June 2009 Yahoo closing down Geocities Yahoo is closing down its Geocities websites. This means www.geocities.com/homelessaustralia will cease to exist from about August or September this year. New entries won't be added after that date but the contents of the site will be available from the National Library of Australia archive site and on a Google site. I''ll post the addresses here long before the shutdown date. 15 June 2009 "Salvation Army Plus" Meltdown This website's favourite Jobseeker reports on his most recent compulsory visit to the "Salvation Army Plus" Job Network joint in Norwood. There was just one employee, he says, in the office apart from what appeared a Work Experience person alone at the front desk after the receptionist stepped out. He says the employee, Brenda, didn't even enter his file on the computer or ask about his job hunting. His trip to Norwood was simply a waste of time to enable the Salvation Army to pretend to be fulfilling the end of its government contract. The Salvation Army's Adelaide contracts run out at the end of June and haven't been renewed by the government for another year so the "Army" has effectively closed down while still absorbing taxpayer dollars. The "Salvation Army Plus" slogan was "We never give up," and, according to one client, they tried to get people to work as paid charity collectors like those crooks who get 30-50% of everything they collect. 15 June 2009 "When Poopsie poisoned me�" A man reminisced last night about the time he went to Poopsie's house for tea. He took his mother. "Mum was crying," he said, referring to the food poisoning they got. "I was in bed for three days. It was the meat." 12 June 2009 Monsignor Bulldozer Cappo Were you moved by Monsignor Land Broker David Cappo�s calls for the Magill Training Centre, Adelaide�s children�s prison, to be bulldozed? He said it was inhumane to keep prisoners there and that it should be replaced by a modern new prison at Cavan near Gepps Cross. His motivation, he implies, is his concern for the child prisoners. What might also be considered is that the Magill prison is on prime real estate on high ground just off Magill Road where it goes into the hills. The air is fresh and it gets the cool gully breezes on hot summer nights. It�s also next door to a large, expensive church-based private school that might want to expand. Nearby houses are fancy and expensive. It�s very valuable and sought after land. Land Broker Cappo wants the Magill prison replaced by a new prison in Cavan, not far from the Cavan truck stops and various industrial buildings � an ugly place. If Land Broker Cappo was serious about improving the lot of inmates he might suggest a new prison be built on the open land in front of the current prison. Afterwards the old building could be bulldozed and replaced by green grass which is currently in front of the prison. Magill is a healthier and more inspiring area than Cavan. Also, if the Land Broker was serious about the welfare of the child prisoners he might look into the issue of repeated strip searchers by guards of teenage inmates. One recent former girl prisoner told me that boys and girls are forced to strip naked then squat over a floor mirror so a guard can casually look up into their lower body orifices. A boy of thirteen, now a man, told me he underwent the same searches. How often do guards find anything hidden in these places? Considering that most inmates there have been the victims of sexual abuse then putting them through this process routinely is simply continuing the bodily abuse. But the Land Broker appears blind to this abuse but he�s certainly clued clued up on the bulldozer solution. 12 June 2009 The other side of the WestCare Saga Gossip was abuzz at Fred's Van last night with the unspoken issue being Jayne, the WestCare cook. It was prompted when the father of her children, Krusher Karl, challenged a number of men at the Jasmin Restaurant meal in Hindmarsh Square, one of whom was carrying a manilla envelope. "More pornography?", Krusher shouted, mistakenly, running up to them, menacing each in turn. It seems that last year, or the year before, someone put pornography in the street mailbox outside Jayne's house. Jayne has children and someone said the children might have seen it. The police were called but to date haven't been able to pin the offence on anyone. This clouds the issue of food mismanagement at WestCare because criticism of the cook is seen by WestCare management as an extension of the mailbox pornography. It was also said that Jayne, while sometimes vindictive towards critics, is seen as a generous and upstanding church member who runs the choir and art room. The above are the reasons WestCare management has defended her so vigorously at some expense to the organisation's reputation. Krusher Karl was infuriated last night at those he suspected of supplying information to this website. Krusher said there better not be any more criticism of Hutt Street Centre or WestCare in the future, or else. He showed considerable courage confronting men in dim light who are no pushovers themselves. Pornography is the scourge of modern society and the person who put the stuff in the cook's mailbox, if the rumour is true, made a bad mistake. Westcare also made errors by unscrupulously forcing out regular patrons, volunteers and church members attempting to expose this under-the-counter nepotism. Instead of openly dealing with the issue they decided to "shoot the messengers". These messengers of change aren't perfect people but in this case had an important message. As to the food thefts this appears part of the WestCare culture where unpaid volunteers and underpaid staff take benefits to make up for a perceived under compensation for their work. It is, or was, an institutional practice rather than personal thieving. But the main thing is forgiving the offences of others and acknowledging one's own offences. This requires a mighty strength of character because it involves becoming humble. Forgiveness doesn't have to be done openly, or in words, but it can be expressed in overall conciliatory actions. Krusher should be commended for bringing the mailbox issue into the open. But why can't those well-paid executives, Ian Townsend, Mike Newman and Graham Mulligan, from WestCare head office, be more open instead of letting dark thoughts a little blackmails fester into an open sore? 12 June 2009 Dirty, rotten seats The padded chairs in the Fish Pond room are cracked and dirty due to old age and lack of cleaning. Why do homeless centres have such filthy rotten furniture when their op shop warehouses have heaps of better stuff. 12 June 2009 Comparing two unpaid volunteer joints Volunteer "jobs" aren't the same everywhere. Some organisations succour their unpaid workers while others drain them of energy then like vampires seek replacements. Here is a comparison between WestCare and another organisation I'll call "Road Service". This is a biased comparison because the ex-volunteer from WestCare is unhappy about what he terms his "years of unpaid work". The volunteer at "Road Service" is happy with his position. My bias is that if I did volunteer or was forced by Centrelink to work for bugger-all I'd choose WestCare any day of the week. As a long term client I've found WestCare staff as nice as Byron Place staff and better than Hutt Street Centre where an employee kicked me out in 1987 for taking a photo of their billiard table. Food: At "Road Service" volunteers get leftover gourmet food from Board and other meetings. It is irregular and unreliable but excellent when it happens. At WestCare volunteers get a regular free lunch. Right to refuse tasks: At WestCare volunteers are treated with disdain if they refuse a particular task with the response that no one else is available so they must do the task. At "Road Service" they are allowed to say "No" without repercussions. Identification: At "Road Service" volunteers wear photo identification while at WestCare there is usually no way of telling if a person is a client, stranger or volunteer, which can be difficult if you're doing pick-ups. Trust and Respect: "Road Service" management has a written code that says unpaid workers are bona fide employees and should be treated by paid employees as co-workers. Complaints are heard by and responded to by someone in authority. At WestCare, the ex-volunteer says, volunteers are treated like scum. Office use: "Road Service" allows volunteers limited use of a photocopier, internet computer, stapler, laminator and phone that can be used to call mobiles. WestCare offers one phone at the Welfare Office but this is usually hogged by a client named Mrs Telstra. It cannot be used to call mobile phones. National Volunteer Week: "Road Service" has an annual function compered by "a little dark guy on TV who does the weather". Volunteers are given a plant, a certificate of service and a dinner voucher at a restaurant. The ex-Westcare man says he didn't even know National Volunteer Week happened during his years there. Re-imbursement for expenses: "Road Service" has a form for claiming expenses like travel to work. WestCare offers none. Gift Register: "Road Service" has a strict policy whereby all gifts from clients to staff must be declared and anything over ten dollars is returned. WestCare in contrast is full of shonk deals, the ex-volunteer says. Mmm, WestCare. Information: "Road Service" keeps volunteers informed with messages and newsletters while WestCare apparently keeps people in the dark. Training Opportunities: "Road Service" provides regular seminars with free lunches and certificates of attendance. The ex-WestCare volunteer says he never heard of any training opportunities though WestCare pay for Police Clearances, similar to "Road Service". Recognition of Service: "Road Service" offers certificates of service and send out Christmas Cards. The less-than-happy WestCare ex-volunteer says he never received any Christmas cards or certificate of service and that the paid employees are "just worried about themselves." Weddings: WestCare does nice weddings for clients and volunteers. "Road Service" does not. 9 June 2009 Below are articles from the main page. You have probably read them before. They are stored here so as to be added to the Reverse Gossip Archive. Chased by Today/Tonight Norm Barber The team at Today/Tonight are fuming. Tara Brown from Channel Nine beat them to the Norm Barber interview. So they�re digging in for the long haul and assign Verity Kate Edwards, Iron Man contestant and Seven�s dogs-body, to maintain friendly contact until they�re ready to pounce. Verity, a killer python addict, lives in a Protected Community back of the Wakefield Private Hospital. �Just touching ground,� she says, in occasional emails, feigning interest in my organ transplant research. �Where do you live?� ask other emails, under other names. �I�m not interested in an interview,� I reply, after twelve months of Verity et el. Channel Seven�s response is to send a camera crew into the Adelaide Hills, knocking on my ex-neighbours� doors: �Have you seen Norm?� they ask. Friends warn me. �I told you: no interview,� I message Verity. �Stop sending people looking for me.� �I don�t know what you�re talking about,� she replies, �Please explain.� I catch Verity trailing me a month later as I exit from the Southern Centre For Bio-Ethics. Her 52kg body, bulked up in thick coats, can barely fit into her Festiva. Her accomplice is the man who faked the Dole Army interview scenes. He disguised a shed then claimed it was a secret tunnel where the Dole Army emerged from at night to scavenge supermarket rubbish bins. He follows me in a black BMW with a secret dashboard camera. He sweats it out in the Findon shopping centre car park, hiding across the front bucket seats while operating the camera. But the heat is too much and he shamefacedly rises up and slinks away. They fall in behind as I drive to the Job Network, following so closely as if trying to stage a crash. I lose him near the empty wool sheds, but at Port Adelaide Verity stands in front of Centrelink, chatting comfortably with people at the bus stop. I climb the stairs to the first floor self-service computer area where another man waits, smiling. �Contact made,� he says into his phone then hides behind a cubicle, pretending to type. Then like creatures beholden to some mysterious circadian rhythm they abandon the chase. I live in my car, sleeping on a rolled back seat or underneath trees in dry weather. Channel Seven knows my Post Box and plants spies outside. They email me claiming to be an organ donor posting research material. Their spy identifies me by their parcel I carry from the post office, and follows me to the Kensington Road lookout that overlooks the Adelaide Plains. He phones the camera crew. �Still living in your car,� shouts Frank Pangalo, a Today/Tonight jock, trying to stop me closing my door. The chase is on. It ends twelve minutes later � the time it takes for my leaky radiator to empty. We�re at Hindmarsh Square in the CBD. They rush my car. I stay inside. The cameraman presses his lens against the windscreen above which the boom operator dangles a microphone. �We just want to talk to you,� says Frank, smoothly, but within minutes he�s thumping the roof and tapping my side window. He rhythmically rocks the car by thrusting his body against the door. �Norm, Norm,� he moans and cajoles like a used-car dealer then tries different psychological buttons: �Leech, bludger, anarchist,� (he has trouble pronouncing the last word). His phone rings, �Yeah, yeah, assassin, yeah�in his car� � his voice is for people in the street; his message for me: public humiliation. My heart races; I need to urinate, my mouth is dry; I want to ask for mercy, but stay silent, motionless. Pangalo says Channel Seven might offer me a job, �Just for a week.� He implies they�ll use that week to film me: if I don�t, they�ll tell Centrelink who will stop payments. He finishes his script then repeats himself like a movie playing a second time. Our faces are close, separated by my driver-side window: we appear conspirators on a dark night. An evening rain sets in and he�s getting wet. He thrusts his pelvis against the car body and I pity him. But he�ll look good on Today/Tonight; the editors will portray me as a scumbag: �Mr Barber prefers to play dumb with us,� Frank�s voiceover will describe this scene. But here we both know the score. I�ve become indifferent to this shock jock. My heart slows to a healthy beat and my mouth moistens. Relief flows through my blood stream like when you bang your �funny bone�, and the excruciating pain triggers a flood of endorphins, those bodily opiates that ease pain. Sitting in the cocoon of my car, my panic becomes elation. They�ve done their worst and I�m still here, feeling good. Frank calls it a night and they return to the station. I camp that night at Norton Summit on a slippery track littered with dozens of computers, lounge suites, a household of 1950s crockery, (individually wrapped in newspaper), and garbage bags of discarded hydroponic dope. They see me at the bulk-billing skin cancer clinic three days later. People living outside over-absorb UV light; causing lesions that can be zapped off with frozen carbon dioxide. At a shopping centre the cameraman gets a few seconds of my wobbly eyes. They slow down the re-play speed during editing making me look even more weird. They feature this doctored-up sequence in program promos across Australia during the weekend football games. �Australia�s Biggest Dole Bludger� they quote, from Leon Byner, an Adelaide shock jock. This fearless investigator later experiences an absence from radio after being caught offering protection from investigators, like him, for $10,000. The final edit has an obese Amanda Vandstone saying, ��encouraging people to lie is a dreadful thing to do.� They obtain an art resume I wrote during the Adelaide Festival and beat it up as a real resume. They get a recruitment advisor, bathing his image in gold, to analyse it. They colour my leaflet, How To Avoid Work for the Dole, in an eerie gunmetal blue, and play subliminal classical music behind it � the music used to portray someone going psychotic. They broadcast the eight and a half-minute segment on Today/Tonight. then it's over. I've passed through another test of fire, or, in this case, a trough of mud, and survive to become stronger. Port Adelaide Bridge Gossip Let's get one thing clear from the start. I know nothing about bridges and even less of engineering. Everything you read below is simply gossip and rumour. The story starts when I recently camped amongst cement encrusted trees between the Adelaide Brighton Cement factory and the new bridges at Port Adelaide. The car and truck bridge is called the Tom "Diver" Derrick Bridge and the train bridge is called the Blessed Mary MacKillop Bridge. (Mary must have been a train buff). The joy of homeless-style camping is that total strangers speak to you of events they wouldn't mention to others. They unload their thoughts onto someone of so little consequence that no one would believe him if these thoughts were repeated. In this case my informers were ABIGROUP contractors and public servants who built the bridges at Port Adelaide. Their chief concern was the predicted century life of the bridges was closer to ten years. One reason was the high-tensile reinforcing mesh left in the rain. It was delivered just on time but due to construction delays got wet and became rusty. This is the thick mesh placed in formwork and onto which concrete is poured. It gives necessary added strength to pylons and the bridge roadway. But this stuff was rusty. If it had been stainless steel mesh there wouldn't have been any problems. When ReadyMix saw the rusty mesh they refused to pour the concrete unless Abigroup released them from their strength guarantee. Abigroup agreed and the concrete was poured. Then came the alleged scaffolding fire. One man told me it was fierce enough to heat the rusty mesh inside the concrete and turn the high-tensile steel into mild iron. By this time the senior engineers put up such a fuss that they left the project. Their professional body, the international society of engineers, then warned their members worldwide to avoid the Abigroup bridge project in Australia. The Abigroup replacement engineers, according to one employee, were hardly out of university and, effectively, apprentices without a master guiding them. The problem originated when the state government chose the wrong contractors, Abigroup, who, according to one informer: "�hadn't built a bridge in the past and won't build another one in the future." The design was also claimed to be problematic: a cheapo French freshwater bridge to be built in the salty Port River. This meant modifications resulting in delays and cost blowouts so the final "bridge cost more than if they'd built a superior, more expensive German-designed saltwater bridge." (Abigroup had tried to get out of the contract when they realised it was the wrong design but by that time they were locked in.) At this time they were in panic mode because their contract included hefty fines by the government for each day the completion date was missed - and the months were being racked up alarmingly fast. They began camouflaging construction problems and the government played ball by not sending its own engineers to sign off on each completed stage: the project had become a political liability and the government wanted it finished. One fundamental problem was when the two sections of the bridge coming from opposite banks didn't meet in the middle. This was despite using the latest GPS and laser technology. The sections were three or four centimetres out of whack. One person said the shifting of pylons in the soft river bed caused the problem. Then the drawbridge wouldn't work properly. It went up but wouldn't come down. They got a huge bulldozer and a steel cable pulling from the opposite side to force it down. The testing was done at night to reduce public ridicule. Another example was the Bassielle, a necessarily dry area below the water line where the counter weights and drawbridge-raising mechanism reside. It leaked. Two-hundred litres of saltwater poured in every minute. The panic buttons were hit again and tons of costly adhesive poured into the cracks but, according to one employee, "It's still leaking." The Basielle is supposed to be a dry area, not flooded in saltwater. Evidence of the wrong bridge design is in the construction of the basielle housing just under the roadway. Its aluminium housing would have been okay in freshwater for which it was designed but the saltwater of the tidal Port River corrodes aluminium. A government accountant, after drinking a little too much at the Colac Hotel, let slip that the bridge was $130 million over budget and that much of this would be disguised by attributing the expenses to other projects. And will Abigroup be held responsible for the bridge if it fails? One informant, also a heavy drinker, said the government had signed off on it. This means they've legally accepted the contract as finished satisfactorily. Any problems in the future will be South Australian government problems, not Abigroup's problems. And, anyway, the government wants to forget the whole project, like some bad nightmare. Well, that's the story I heard. Whether it is the truth or not I don't know. Two Trojan Horses David Cappo and Roseanne Haggerty Norm Barber Adelaide, South Australia Roseanne Haggerty appeared unaffected by the extended applause at the packed Adelaide Town Hall two years ago. She had described an incident where a homeless old man in New York City was picked up by ambulance then treated in hospital for a few days before being discharged back onto the streets. The problem was he�d return a few weeks later and each process cost the government a fortune. Wouldn�t it be cheaper to supply the old boy with housing and regular nurse visits, Haggerty asked? The answer was an obvious, yes. Yes, too, for the old men living in the Adelaide parklands was the implication. It was difficult to dispute her logic. The South Australian government hired Haggerty as its Thinker-in-Residence on homelessness. Her contract cost taxpayers $250,000. It had little practical impact for most people living outside but it was a public relations coup for the Premier, Mike Rann. It endorsed his government�s policy of grabbing old homeless men off the streets via the psychiatric agency, Street-to-Home. They�d rounded up the previous year ten sick old men living outside, putting some of them into Glenside Psychiatric Hospital. The process generally involved destroyed their personal belongings and taking control of their income and assets via the Public Trustee. The old men were medicated then dressed in flannelette shirts, track pants and Chinese slippers. Some were put into boarding houses for discharged psychiatric patients. Others went into HousingSA units. They were all, effectively, under �benevolent house arrest�. The fact they�d been tricked or coerced into signing away their medical, economic and personal privacy rights was beside the point: they were off the streets. Roseanne Haggerty: the first Trojan Horse? Corporate director Monsignor, Vicar General, Catholic Priest, and government Social Inclusion Commissioner David Cappo had been threatening to resign his Commissioner job. His gripe in part was that government departments wouldn�t relinquish sensitive personal details of lower socio-economic clients. Cappo wanted sensitive information made accessible to certain psychiatric and rehabilitation agencies. He wanted these departments to renege on privacy guarantees they�d pledged to clients. His motive was to help people by taking control of their lives; by making everything about them available to an array of health and criminal professionals, and even hostile relatives. Little would be secret. Welfare bureaucrats would either coerce or trick clients into signing disclosure agreements or it might be done regardless of client wishes. Cappo claimed that privacy firewalls between government departments and private contractors were barriers to helping �the homeless� and other people. But few listened to the Monsignor. Some said he was merely a Catholic Priest meddling in secular affairs. Sure, he might be the Premier�s right-hand man with more influence than most elected Members of Parliament, but they still wouldn�t listen to him. Roseanne Haggerty changed that. Haggerty is an icy New York real estate agent who plays the game well. She looks good, she speaks well and she is comfortable in expensive restaurants. And being a quick learner she learned to bow to the right people and ignore the rest. She also made sense to Adelaide city property owners sick of vagrants begging for money and lowering property values. Her plan was to semi-institutionalise the homeless class by renovating old city buildings into �studio� apartments, and place high fences and guard boxes in front of existing HousingSA blocks of flats. Haggerty�s �Common Ground� housing plan for Adelaide�s �homeless� people featured �studio� apartments smaller than those rented by HousingSA and more expensive. Her versions would include electronic surveillance of tenant movements and in-house guards/social workers whose costs would be absorbed by higher rents and smaller accommodation. The primary condition of �Common Ground� housing was that tenants agreed to open their lives to various government departments and contracted �helping agencies�. For example, the initial application form required an approved personal Manager, usually from the three main homeless centres. Applicants were also required to provide details of their doctor, prescribed medications and next of kin. The general public loved the concept but apart from a couple of token projects that were happening anyway, it was laid to rest. Haggerty�s Thinker-in-Residence ideas were simply irrelevant but the positive publicity she created allowed David Cappo to steamroll ahead with his pervasive and comprehensive intervention into peoples� lives. His plan was similar to Haggerty�s except his version would apply to every person applying for public housing. Applicants in mass would be treated as potential criminals, psychiatric patients, drug addicts, disabled persons, refugees or indigenous and all needing intervention into their lives until proven otherwise. What was good for ten sick old men living outside was suddenly appropriate for the whole socio-economic group known as the �underclass�. This consists of about 5% of South Australia�s population. Cappo�s political influence grew further when the Premier, Mike Rann told his senior Ministers to fall into line and order their departments to adopt �social inclusion� principles. HousingSA with over 40,000 government-owned rental houses, flats and units was told to virtually wipe 80% of its usual client base off its books. Housing would in future be rented only to those submitting letters from doctors, psychiatrists, parole officers, drug addiction counsellors or the like, detailing the applicants� personal �problems�. There was suddenly huge incentive to �develop� problems like, for example, depression: hard to diagnose and easy to feign. The downside was that those seeking housing were also forced to sign privacy waivers meaning their most private medical details could end up anywhere, and they�d never be informed of the fact. To camouflage this huge change the then Minister in charge of HousingSA, Jay Weatherill, stated publicly that no one would be kicked off the waiting lists. He sounded sincere. What he didn�t say was that those who wouldn�t sign away their medical and other privacy rights would languish on Category 3. Category 3 has a nominal waiting time of twenty years though insiders say Category 3 is effectively dead. Weatherill deceived these people waiting for housing so as to disguise the fact that 20,000 of them had effectively being thrown off the housing waiting list. To discourage these clients demanding explanations the South Australia State Government hired Sue Vardon as the Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Families and Communities. This includes HousingSA (formerly the Housing Trust of South Australia). Her previous job was that of CEO for Centrelink. She changed Centrelink from an agency accountable to its clients to that of a closed bureaucracy. She simply destroyed the chain of command. Under Vardon what the front counter employee said to a client was effectively a final decision. She dumbed down staff knowledge of welfare rules making them niche bureaucrats, each understanding a tiny section of the rules they administered. Vardon�s dumbing down process was so successful that some staff don�t even understand the basic decision review procedures. This means clients lose payments they are legally entitled to claim. Angry clients could complain, sure, by using the complaints hotline. But this was merely an �anger sink� to dissipate client grievances. Centrelink employees openly called the Hotline a joke. Vardon called this whole process �cutting the fat�. The recently retired Sue Vardon has gone for good, hopefully, but her effect on HousingSA has been similar to that on Centrelink. Even veteran church and community housing advocates now find themselves unable to help clients obtain basic housing information such as: where they are on the waiting list; conditions of housing; rent costs; requirements to get on Category 1. HousingSA staff have become secretive, obstructive and reputedly enact vendettas against clients who challenge them, the latter because the chain of command has been destroyed. So while David Cappo issues his warm talk about �social inclusion� the actuality is that the government via HousingSA has excluded most of its client base and treats the less with diminished dignity. Roseanne Haggerty�s Thinker-in-Residence placement was a Public Relations campaign in disguise. It allowed the government to strip civil liberties from a large section of the underclass by equating them with ten elderly homeless men living in the Adelaide parklands. Cappo couldn�t have done it without Haggerty, who for a mere $250,000 did far more than any more expensive publicity campaign. She was both Cappo�s Trojan Horse and the government�s Trojan Horse. The Second Trojan Horse Premier Mike Rann�s next problem was cracking the church homeless agencies. These places provide food, showers, nurses and moral support for those living outside. Mike�s version of �social inclusion� was along the lines of starving the �homeless� from the city and sending them to suburbia � places like Elizabeth. He wanted to close down homeless agencies like WestCare, Hutt Street Centre and Byron Place Community Centre, or co-opt them into his plan of �socially including� the homeless. But what sort of hired gun could he get for the job? There were dozens of mid-forties, high power female bureaucrats in Adelaide desperate to become Commissioners for anything. But they wouldn�t get past the front door of church homeless agencies. �Media Mike� Rann needed a Trojan Horse who could penetrate church defences, especially Catholic defences, without being identified as the enemy. He found his man in Monsignor Corporate Director Vicar General David Cappo. It�s easy to prompt a giggling fit with the more devout staff at the Hutt Street Centre for homeless people. You simply ask them when David Cappo issues them with directives does he make it clear whether he�s speaking as Social Inclusion Commissioner or as a Monsignor in the Catholic church. He�s their church boss and they must follow his orders but as a government Commissioner they can tell him to go to hell. The Hutt Street Centre was founded by the Daughters of Charity, a Catholic Order. Since the retirement of most of its Adelaide Nuns the Centre has led the way in adopting �social inclusion principles� by requiring clients to produce identification such as Health Care Cards when buying their two-dollar lunches at the Centre. Cappos� penetration of other homeless agencies hasn�t relied completely on his Catholic status; money has also helped. The Department of Families and Communities finances �homeless surveys� conducted by government financed church agency employees. Clients are asked their housing status and their use of other welfare agencies on the survey day. They are allocated �codified� identifiers to retain anonymity and to track changes in their lives at the next survey. The �codified� identifier contains part of their initials and birthdate. The Department collects this information for �statistical purposes�. These silly surveys include just three homeless agencies and a couple of Street-to-home employees walking around the Parklands. Everyone knows the statistics collected are gross underestimates and aren�t even good government propaganda. So why would the government waste money on them. The first issue is that the �codified� identifiers will eventually be united with the real names of the clients. Sophisticated data collection computer software will ensure that what was given anonymously initially will later be attached to a name and birth date. Another effect of these silly surveys is to get church staff used to the process of being government informers, spies on their own clients. And, secondly, to get clients used to providing personal �anonymous� information for services that previously were offered without strings attached. And, finally, to set in place a real time Homeless Register accessible by the police of those using homeless services like showers, food, laundry, nurses, anything. This Register would be accessible for law enforcement and psychiatric agencies like Street-to-home. When they wanted to locate and �grab� a homeless person the Register would identify the target�s movements. Again, you might think real time monitoring of certain citizens� use of basic services is a reasonable action. But if you consider the scenario of yourself being monitored each time you buy a can of Coke or have a shower then the horror of the situation becomes more evident. And remember, what was considered by authorities appropriate for ten homeless men has been partially extended to the whole underclass, and might in the future be applied to everyone. Who pays for the second Trojan Horse? David Cappo might have been surprised when his Archbishop wished him well in taking up the secular position of Social Inclusion Commissioner. It is quite unusual for a leading priest to become a high-ranking government employee. But the financial power brokers in the church and Dave�s Archbishop gave him their blessing. Back in 2003 when David Cappo was expounding his �help the homeless� social inclusion plan he was apparently arranging a deal between the state government of Mike Rann and the Catholic Church. For some strange reason the government was willing to sell to the Catholic Church prime city land, in this case the old tram barn site at Victoria Square, for a whopping discount. The Catholic Church Endowment Society, the business arm of the Church, got it for a million dollar discount at then current prices. When settlement finally occurred the land value had increased even more, making it perhaps a two-million dollar discount on market value. The church then secured a long term rental contract for the edifice that was built on the site with government instrumentality SAWater. One Church spokesman said it assured the Church�s financial future. So while Social Inclusion Commissioner David Cappo was promoting the government�s homeless housing plan, in which homeless people were excluded from housing if they wouldn�t meet increasingly stringent requirements, Monsignor David Cappo appears to have been negotiating a deal that could be described as at least a million-dollar gift to his church from the South Australia government. Perhaps this was the price the big money men of the Church demanded for the sacrifice of their top Priest. Thus, we get the second Trojan Horse. 15 August 2008 For more details of the Cappo land deal story see Jeremy Roberts�s report in The Australian Newspaper of 5 July, 2008. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23971510-5006787,00.html Home |