No, this is not another article on treating insomnia by reading government agency reports. Recently I spent a weekend up in the big smoke staying in a fancy designer downtown hotel. It was very nice but despite my best efforts (closing blackout blinds, cups of chamomile and long baths), I still awoke at my usual 7am. I decided to go for a wander and see if I couldn’t find a freshly baked croissant somewhere.
All sounds very privileged, right? I certainly felt that way as I made my way to Hyde Park and was drawn down into the heritage train station that lies beneath. En route, my privilege was very much heightened by passing a number of rough sleepers lining the periphery of the subway. There were all sorts of set-ups: from the basic piece of cardboard, to full cubbyhouse-style combinations of shopping trolleys, mattresses, pallets and other flotsam and jetsam that one might find discarded in the city.
Regardless of set-up, none of them looked particularly cosy. One was even being raided by a ‘bin chicken’ – at least, that’s what it looked like! Later on that day I visited the new wing to the Art Gallery of NSW, which had more space than you could swing a Schrödinger’s cat in. I looked up the price-tag, thinking it was in the billions. I was incorrect (don’t ask an architect how much things cost, the answer is generally “a lot”). AGNSW’s new wing came in at a modest $0.344 billion. I say modest as it’s going to cost taxpayers $375 billion for five nuclear submarines (if we get them). Anyhow, $0.344 billion is the equivalent of 344,000 Eastern Sydney average-sized house renovations and, according to the ABC, approximately 5733.3 emergency shelter beds (at $60k a pop).
I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how many rough sleepers there are in Sydney and if 5733.3 beds would solve the problem. Either that, or you’re still googling what a Schrödinger’s cat is and if it can be swung. Putting existential questions aside, the last street count put the number of rough sleepers in Sydney at about 2037. So, yes, should the extension wing of the AGNSW have been an emergency shelter, it would have had the ability to house all the rough sleepers two times over. That’s a number that could solve not just my insomnia!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against money invested in cultural institutions, but if you ever hear someone say homelessness is too difficult to treat, tell them they’re wrong. As for the subs, they can only fit about 132 personnel, so they won’t help solve our homelessness crisis. Maybe we can tether them into the electricity grid and the Liberals can have their subs and eat them too.
