The silent, invisible and forgotten 105,000

Abraham Maslow (1908-70) was an US psychologist [1]. He’s best known for his Hierarchy of Needs [2]. Maslow’s Hierarchy’s usually depicted as a pyramid, with the more basic needs lower – and broader. According to which version of the pyramid you look at, shelter’s in the lowest level (i.e. physiological needs) or the one above (i.e. security needs). It matters not – because either way, shelter’s a basic human need. Yet the dreadful fact is that 1 in 200 Australians is homeless, i.e. a total of 105,000 of us are homeless on any given night [3]. What a staggering fact. It’s a statistic I’m ashamed of. My nation’s wealthy – blessed with untold mineral and other wealth. Yet we can’t provide one of the most basic human needs to all Australians. The governments of this country have all but abdicated their responsibility to remedy this disgrace. Sadly it’s been left to NGOs headed by Homelessness Australia [4]. As good intentioned as these NGOs are, they don’t have the resources to accomplish the job. Make no mistake: the needed resources are massive. But they should be mobilised. And our parliaments should do it – on a bipartisan basis. But the homeless have received nary a mention in the current election campaign. For, I reckon, homelessness isn’t a sexy topic. But I’d gladly pay more tax to help provide shelter for all 105,000 homeless fellow Australians. Oh, and by the way, 2-8 August is National Homeless Persons’ Week [5]. Ho hum.