Who are the Homeless?

National Homeless Persons’ Week 2010 starts today and runs until Sunday. It aims to raise awareness of homelessness in the community, celebrate and acknowledge current services being offered to homeless people, foster collaboration of services working with the homeless and attract more volunteers and financial support into the sector.

Every day this week on my radio programme I’ll be talking to people who serve Perth’s homeless community.

Today’s guest was Beth Innes, Project Officer Red Cross. I spoke to Beth about the growing problem of homelessness and discussed the fact that contrary to the sterotypical view of the homeless being older down and out men, over 40% of the homeless in Perth are under 18.

Families are living in cars; people who have jobs can’t afford the fuel to get to work; rent increases mean that parents can no longer put a roof over their family’s heads.

You can hear our discussion by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/MOR080210_1152.mp3]

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Talking to Tim Fischer

Tim Fischer, AC, has served Australia as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and the chairman of Tourism Australia. He’s authored books on a variety of topics from East Timor to trains.

In July 2008 Tim Fischer was nominated by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as the first resident Australian Ambassador to the Holy See since 1973, when diplomatic relations with the Vatican and Australia was first established.

He’s currently back in Australia and yesterday he visited the Benedictine Community at New Norcia in Western Australia to deliver an address which touched on a variety of issues including the forthcoming canonisation of Mary MacKillop.

I spoke to Tim Fischer on the phone this morning during my radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM. You can hear out conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

I asked him about his address at New Norcia titled, “Representing ‘Australia Unlimited’ at the Holy See: From Religious Freedom to Food Security” as well as the connection between faith and politics and whether he was missing politics during the current federal election campaign. I also asked about his love of trains and what train journey’s he had taken in Europe.

Tim Fischer has a fascinating mix of interests so it’s always interesting to hear from him.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/MOR080210_0943.mp3]

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