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A former Sydney public relations government who grew to become homeless in her 60s says publicising her story led to a cascade of contact from suburban ladies who had additionally fallen on laborious instances.
Glen-Marie Frost, 73, beforehand lived in a mansion in Bellevue Hill in Sydney’s east, managed a world PR firm and was head of communications and group relations for the Sydney Olympics.
She counted TV character Kerri-Anne Kennerley and former NSW senator Helen Coonan amongst her mates.
She was married to a rich property government however her husband plunged their household into debt within the Eighties with out her information, leaving her with out belongings following their divorce.
She then grew to become unwell and needed to shut her government teaching enterprise and was homeless at 64.
Ms Frost informed a NSW parliamentary inquiry into homelessness amongst older folks she now lives in public housing in interior Sydney’s Woolloomooloo and is on a pension.
After going public along with her story greater than two years in the past, Ms Frost stated she was being contacted 24 hours a day, seven days every week by different ladies searching for help.
“Turning into homeless … has no discrimination,” Ms Frost stated on Monday.
“Most of those ladies got here from suburban, regular life.”
Lots of the ladies who contacted Ms Frost had been dwelling of their vehicles, after beforehand working for main information shops.
“They are not folks to go to hostels … it is simply not who they’re,” she stated.
Some had been former journalists from publishing empires Fairfax and Information Restricted who had been retrenched, she stated.
“And naturally, I got here from the age of not having (superannuation) and I assume most of them did too.”
Lots of the ladies additionally weren’t confiding of their relations or asking for assist, she stated.
One other girl, Bee Teh, was sofa browsing with household whereas recovering from most cancers, when her sister-in-law requested her to go away.
“You do not have cash. You do not have a job. And you’ll’t get a spot to hire,” Ms Teh informed the inquiry.
“I simply drove across the Botanical Backyard after which I simply bawled. I simply stopped the automotive and simply began crying.”
She slept within the automotive park of Campbelltown Hospital, pondering it will be secure, and the next morning informed hospital reception she wanted assist.
She was assigned a “very form” social employee who helped her apply for public housing.
“It’s totally troublesome …. as a result of the kinds it’s good to apply for housing – it is such as you want a level.”
The primary property she was positioned into in Minto, in southwest Sydney, was infested with cockroaches that crawled over her face at evening, and she or he grew to become unsettled when a neighbour started trying into her window at evening.
Ms Teh was later put right into a everlasting house by the Girls’s Housing Firm, and now lives in Sydney’s interior west and works on the College of Sydney.
“A everlasting house or everlasting residence could be very recuperating,” she stated.
“I simply hope that there will be much less homeless folks out and about as a result of each wet day or storm I consider them.”
Homelessness NSW CEO Trina Jones stated social housing coverage wanted to be thought-about a vital service.
“Not an afterthought, however an funding that we decide to in a sustained means that may meet the present and future demand.”
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