Between Faith and Reason.
O. comes from Sao Tome and Principe, in the Gulf of Guinea. If you have no idea where that is, picture the most beautiful place in the world. Got it? This isn’t it. This place, is a place like you’ve never seen before, and therefore can't imagine. You just wont be able to do this place justice. If you get him at the right time and ask O. about the islands he comes from, this would be his response, punctuated by deep full bodied laughter. The big friendly giant's heavily medicated eyes glaze off into the distance to recall childhood memories, at least those he can remember. As you listen to the island stories, growing up as a child running freely through his village, surrounded by many brothers and sisters, you realize that this 36 year old is far from home in a four floor St Kilda Rooming House.
Every night as I turn up to work, O. is one of the few of the residents who approaches me to say hello. He often doesn’t say much more than that. But the giant African with a beaming smile, bounds across the ground floor of the building to greet me. "Hey how are you going?" Nodding enthusiastically and disappearing as swiftly as he came before I have time to respond.
It is confronting at times working here in the rooming house, and the reasons are many. One of them is telling grown adults what the rules of the rooming house are. Reminding them of the house rules they signed up to… No visitors after 11. No overnight guests. No using the laundry after 10:30pm. There are rules, and the rules are discussed when people apply for a space in the house. The rules are established to create a safe environment for 67 individuals, most of who suffer from mental health problems and were previously living on the streets. The rules are in place to protect and nurture a peaceful co-existence in what you could describe as a vulnerable and highly fragile community. If you're thinking about Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, don't. The rooming house couldn't be further from a mental asylum. The residents here are desperately wanting to be here. It is a world away from where they have been, and staff do their best to keep it that way. Earlier tonight, T. approached me to let me know that someone had scribbled on the couches in the general lounge room. This, for her, was a tragedy of extreme proportions. How could someone do this? How could someone do this in her home? To the furniture she uses to sit and watch 'The Voice'. The rooming house had become home for T. who was recovering from physical and emotional trauma afflicted on her from a violent relationship she had endured for most of her adolescence. The rooming house was her refuge, her peace, her chance at a new beginning. She would be protective of her couch, her space, and the rules weren't enough to protect them.
Nor are the rules enough to help L. Rules weren't going to do anything for the 56 year old artist whose talents were natural, and a true gift. Drifting in and out of sleep, L. would wait for me to arrive those nights when he would be able to tell me excitedly: "hey shankar, they placed one of my paintings in the staff kitchen room at Flinders Street". His work, it was exceptional. If you have ever wondered if you have a heart, you will certainly feel it breaking when you listen to L. talk about his 'achievements' - there is his destiny...and its sitting out of his reach. He was a street artist whose work came from an imagination governed by its own rules.
Sometimes I look at the residents and realize what this place is for most of them. A half way house for the lost and found. A purgatory for those who have lost themselves through years of sickness, trauma, isolation, depravation. Some find themselves again, or find a new version of themselves, a repaired spirit, a re-invention of themselves in this midway point between one hell and the next chapter of their lives.
Over the past year that I have been here, all I have often seen is a snapshot. A year in the lives of the formerly homeless, now living mostly in a state of numbness, drifting in a stupour of highly powered medication, little more than vacant shells of another life. As I walk through the general lounge just before locking up for the night, I notice a few of the residents sitting and watching TV quietly… I can only wonder, will their lives ever be what it should have been. Do they still hope? Do they still dream? And if they do, will they get a chance to live their dreams... Between faith and reason, one can only imagine for them a future that might never be.
