Excerpt from No Filter:
In May 2021, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Homelessness NSW published a report on the policing of public spaces and rough sleepers. Pages of testimony from people with lived experience of homelessness lay bare near-daily harassment from police, verbal abuse, excessive force and improper uses of searching powers. “Several service providers we spoke to suggested a need for police to develop a better understanding of the intersections between trauma, mental health and substance use disorder that commonly affect their clients,” the report’s authors write.
Alex*, who lives in the Northcott public housing building, tells me that the frequency of negative police interactions means there is a “deficit in trust” in the police among neighbours. He also works for StreetCare, an advisory and advocacy panel made up entirely of people with lived experience of homelessness, so he’s become a mouthpiece for his community. He tells me a range of stories that are noteworthy for how normal they are inside the nation’s public housing estates: a swarm of navy blue uniforms encircling someone experiencing a psychotic break, cops accusing him of selling drugs and being high when he himself called them for help, explaining to senior police officers what trauma-informed training is. You get the picture.
He says his neighbours are “being judged for where they live, not who they are or what they’re doing.”
