Giving the gift of hope

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 23/12/2013

Reporter: Lisa Whitehead

The homeless shelter bringing Christmas cheer to the elderly folk who find themselves without a roof over their heads.

Transcript

TRACY BOWDEN, PRESENTER: It's often said Christmas is a time for family, so it can be a lonely time for some, especially those who've been homeless or on the edge of it for years.

They've often lost contact with family and friends and have no-one to share the festive season with.

But one Victorian organisation has become like a loving family for thousands of elderly folk who found themselves without a roof over their heads.

Wintringham gives them a place to call home, where there's always plenty of Christmas cheer.

Lisa Whitehead reports.

PTOLEMY: I felt like I was being a burden to my family and so I started living on street. Most of the places I've slept have been under bridges or, like, in a park or something.

LISA WHITEHEAD, REPORTER: For four years, Ptolemy lived in this tent under a city bridge, a freeway thundering overhead.

So it was hard to find a shower or a toilet?

PTOLEMY: Of a weekend, it is, yes.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Ptolemy, who's 52, suffers from emphysema. He has poor eyesight and vitamin D deficiency caused by years of living in the dark.

And as you were getting older, was it getting tougher to sort of live down here?

PTOLEMY: Yes. It gets - it was getting tougher because health problems started to come into it.

LISA WHITEHEAD: So you started to get sick?

PTOLEMY: Yes.

LISA WHITEHEAD: A few months ago, he ended up in a Melbourne hospital. Through a friend who once shared his underground cave, he was put in touch with an organisation that offered him a place to call home.

PTOLEMY: This is a good room. You walk out there, there's a lovely garden and all of these things. And this is a clean place. And a lot of these boarding houses are dirty, grovely little things with bed bugs and bloody cockroaches and goodness knows what else. ...

... They offer cooking classes and, like, health - like, dietician services and all of these things.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Ptolemy's new home is run by a not-for-profit organisation called Wintringham. It provides care and accommodation in Victoria to more than 1,000 elderly people. But it has a unique place in aged care: all of its residents were teetering on the edge of homelessness or living rough.

Wintringham is Bryan Lipmann's baby. He started his career as a social worker at the often violent homeless night shelters in Melbourne.

BRYAN LIPMANN, CEO, WINTRINGHAM: You could imagine living there, but you sure as hell couldn't imagine your parents or your grandparents living there. So there was acts of horrific brutality and murders and bashings and rapes, but there was acts of wanton kindness too.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Back then he says wasn't able to place one elderly person from the night shelters in an aged care nursing home or hostel, so in 1990, he decided to build his own.

BRYAN LIPMANN: I spent a long time in the bush, so I wanted to build houses that looked like bush, with verandas, with soft building materials, with gardens. A lot of fresh air so people could be outside, smoke and drink. I wanted to give them some happiness and some dignity, some peace in the last few years of their life. So we gave ourselves an unofficial nickname: 'A home until stumps'.

LISA WHITEHEAD: The outstanding design of the homes was recognised by the United Nations with a Habitat Award two years ago.

Alex Lawrence has lived at Port Melbourne hostel for six years.

You weren't able to live in a boarding house or rent a place anywhere?

ALEX LAWRENCE: I did, but they were druggos and alcoholics. I lasted about three days, I think. The police were there. (Laughs)

LISA WHITEHEAD: Did you figure it was safer to be on the streets?

ALEX LAWRENCE: Bloody oath it was. Never had any trouble. (Laughs)

LISA WHITEHEAD: Then Alex Lawrence got sick and became an easy target on the street.

BRYAN LIPMANN: We found him lying on the ground outside the supermarket, all bloody and beaten, and some kids from the pub had taken some sport with him.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Do you think it saved your life, this place?

ALEX LAWRENCE: Probably, yeah.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Alex Lawrence features in a new book on Wintringham by freelance writer Elaine Farrelly.

ELAINE FARRELLY, WRITER: I was intrigued to know why Bryan had taken on the cause of this group of people who were really invisible and powerless in society. And the thing that really inspired me about Bryan was the level of passion that he has even now, 20-plus years later, for the cause.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Bryan Lipmann fought to change attitudes to the homeless who were frail and elderly, arguing they should have the same rights to decent aged care as everyone else and they should be funded accordingly.

BRYAN LIPMANN: If we can get people early enough and stabilise them, get some decent tucker into them, let them realise that they're not going to be bashed or raped or robbed, let them start to assert themselves, get them to doctors, people start to live longer. We've had some people who've lived with us since the day we opened.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Bryan Lipmann was inspired by the late Tiny Wintringham, a homeless man in Melbourne in the 1970s who fought to stop a homeless shelter being shut down.

BRYAN LIPMANN: In those early days I had to have something to inspire me, I suppose. I had his photo up on my wall and I used to say to Tiny, 'So what do I do now, mate?' And I can't say he ever answered.

LISA WHITEHEAD: After two decades in aged care, Wintringham has broken more new ground, taking on a partnership with Woollahra, an agency that looks after disabled adults. Wintringham cares for elderly parents like Sonia, and next door, Woollahra cares for her daughter, Anna-Maria.

BRYAN LIPMANN: So Wintringham would look after the financially impoverished elderly parent and Woollahra would look after the child, but we'd be able to them as two organisations who trusted each other and the mother and daughter or whatever would be able to live almost next door to each other.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Many homeless people grow old before their time, so Wintringham offers people as young as 50 a home and a surrogate family.

BRYAN LIPMANN: We had no families. You could come here on Christmas Day and you would hardly see anyone other than staff. So we actually encourage our staff to take that role on of family. And that becomes a fundamental difference. So when staff actually become involved in the lives of these old guys, hold their hands when they're dying. We try to be with people, give them some dignity, some laughter - there's a lot of laughter at Wintringham, at lot of joking going on. Staff feel that they've made a real difference in people's lives.

TRACY BOWDEN: Lisa Whitehead reporting.

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