Family forced to camp, miss school, and meet farmer's labour demands, mother says

The Carey family stands outside the Salvation Army Crisis Unit they’re living in.  (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville )

A family who travelled thousands of kilometres across Australia after becoming homeless say they were forced to do free labour for several weeks to keep a roof over their heads.

Mother-of-six Samantha Carey said the distressing episode started last year when her family moved from St Helens on Tasmania’s east coast to Geraldton in Western Australia.

On arrival, the family immediately started looking for private rentals and joined the social housing wait list, but found no available accommodation.

Ms Carey said they were travelling from campsite to campsite when momentary relief came from a local farmer who offered the family a place to park their caravan in exchange for 10 hours of farm work each week.

However, she said the farmer began demanding additional hours of work until the parents and some of the children were working a combined 100 hours a week.

“He took advantage,” Ms Carey said.

“He literally told us: ‘You’ve got nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to rent. You’ve got no choice’.”

The Carey family managed to find alternative living arrangements with the help of Regional Alliance West (RAW), a local non-profit organisation that offers free community services to vulnerable people.

Corporate manager Leanne Robertson says there is “no doubt” other people are facing similar situations across Australia as a lack of accommodation gives property owners more opportunities to exploit people.

“It can’t be a one-off,” she said.

“People don’t know where they can go. They just think that they have to put up with being treated the way that they’re being treated.

“Businesses exploiting people who are vulnerable and suffering extreme hardship should be ashamed of themselves.

“I just wish there were stronger laws that we could take [action] against the people that are treating the vulnerable people like this.”

Now living in a crisis unit in Geraldton, Ms Carey says she jumps for the phone when it rings, hoping a call will end the family’s plight.

She and her partner Nathan packed up their lives and six children in 2022 when the rising cost of living forced them out of regional tourist town St Helens.

Ms Carey had been a voluntary ambulance officer and both parents were carers for some of their children who have neurological disabilities, but their future in St Helens had become unviable.

“There was no opportunities. Everything was very expensive” Ms Carey said.

The family made the 4,000km journey to Geraldton to be closer to Ms Carey’s grandfather and hoped it would be a more affordable place for them to put down roots.

Travelling for four months, lived in a tent and pop-top caravan, arriving in Geraldton in April last year.

Despite submitting endless rental applications and immediately joining the list for social housing, the family has been unable to find permanent accommodation.

“With six kids, that private rental just doesn’t happen. People don’t like renting to big families,” Ms Carey said.

“And the price of private rent is just astronomical. Like, it’s just outrageous. We couldn’t afford it.

“We looked at caretaker roles. We contacted real estate agents to see if people that were selling their houses would be willing to rent until they sold.”

Ms Carey said her children had to go eight months without school as the family moved from town to town searching for a caravan park site they could afford but “all their permanent spots were taken because of the rent crisis”.

“There’s that stress of, ‘Is Child Protection going to take my children?’,” Ms Carey said.

“You can’t enrol them in school if you’ve got nowhere that you’re actually settling.

“We did homeschool for a little while the best we can. It’s hard when you got no internet.”

Late last year RAW connected the family with the local Salvation Army branch, which provided a small three-bedroom crisis unit.

What was meant to be a three-month stay has grown to five and a half months.

“Salvation Army told us they will not put us back into homelessness,” Ms Carey said.

“But while we’re here, another family can’t come, so we are just waiting for the phone call.”

‘Ripple effect’ of women’s homelessness

Grassroots advocacy group Women Without Homes was recently formed in Geraldton by women from different organisations in the community.

Western Australian Centre for Rural Health Associate Professor Monica Moran, a member of the group, said it surveyed 39 homeless women in the community and found more than half of them had children.

“Repeatedly in their responses they talked about their concerns for their children’s wellbeing and the difficulty of maintaining regular school attendance,” she said.

“That [homelessness] has a ripple effect into education, into health, into youth justice.

“So it’s not just about supporting women.”

The collective has also found that women who are homeless often have large families and are the primary carers for children or grandchildren.

“Those women are struggling because they work less because of the caring responsibilities,” said Ms Moran.

“They may have dependents with disabilities, they may be caring for an older member of the family.

“So they’re less attractive within the housing market and there are fewer properties available to them.”

Call for solutions catering to women

Women Without Homes has published a report on women’s homelessness in the Geraldton area with recommendations it says can be applied to communities across the nation.

Among the recommendations is the development of short-to-medium term accommodation for women and their children arriving in town, as well as the provision of more and larger public housing.

Ms Moran said the collective also wanted firm pressure on landlords and real estate agents to adhere to anti-discrimination laws.

“There are so many women and their children who get eliminated [from housing] along the way,” Ms Moran said.

“The decision about who’s offered accommodation [should be] based on who meets the requirements, not the perfect tenant.”