Musgrave Park has become home to many people unable to find affordable accommodation. To many West End residents they may just be one of the signs of the worsening cost of living crisis, but one local resident decided to get to know the people sleeping there and do something to help.
Rhiannon, with her little dog, Grover, often walks in Musgrave Park and says the people who use the park feel responsible for looking after the space.
“We’re quite a tight-knit community down there. We always care for the park, we always clean up rubbish and look after the wildlife,” she said.
So when tents started appearing in the park, Rhiannon began saying hello to the people living in them and saw a need for support. She says she started checking in on them regularly and that even though they are, for the most part, competent and self-sufficient, she wanted them to know they were not on their own.
“We’d go down and take supplies and check in with the people. A lot of people weren’t originally from West End and they weren’t connecting with resources in the area, so we put them in contact with people that can help and made them aware of what was available.”
As more and more people came to live in Musgrave Park, Rhiannon decided she needed help to meet demand so she put a call out on Facebook. Ten people put their hands up and that week they made 600 meals.
The idea to create the Facebook group came when Jonathan Sriranganathan was retiring and asked Rhiannon to come and speak at his leaving party.
“I thought, we need to have some kind of presence, and I had the words “Feeding 4101” in the back of my head, so that’s when I made the group.”
But, Rhiannon says, although both state MP Amy McMahon and local councillor Trina Massey have been very helpful and supportive, Feeding 4101 are not affiliated with The Greens or any other groups. But both Amy and Trina have joined them walking around West End delivering meals and also come down to see the people living under the Grey Street and Go-Between bridges.
“That’s when [Federal member] Max [Chandler-Mather] and Amy started the barbecue.”
A community barbecue is now held every Monday afternoon from 4pm to 5.30pm at Kurilpa Point Park.
Emmanuel City Mission in South Brisbane supply around 1000 meals per week to those in need. When they recently closed for one of their regular one-week retreats, Rhiannon put the call out and with the help of West End Community House, seven locals, and ingredients supplied by Belvedere Farm, over 700 meals were produced, plus cakes and fresh fruit.
Rhiannon says, although there are other groups out there feeding the people sleeping rough, she and her group of locals are filling the gaps. With the help of Jonathon Sriranganathan, and then his replacement Trina Massey, they had electricity made available in Musgrave Park for the rough sleepers so they could charge their phones. Rhiannon says that even though people can go to places like Emmanuel City Mission or West End Community House to charge their phones, these places are not always open.
“If you’re homeless your phone is your lifeline and many people have older or cheaper phones. They can be on their phones all day and one charge may not be enough.”
Rhiannon says people experiencing homelessness rely heavily on their phones to keep in touch with housing and job network providers and with services like Centrelink.
When asked how she keeps motivated to go on helping, Rhiannon says its hearing people say negative things about people who sleep rough.
“The people experiencing homelessness need to know they’re not just there by themselves.”
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