Some of you will know long-term Hamer reso Nick Rice. I am very sorry to report that Nick was killed in a road accident on Monday afternoon. Resos and Hamer management alike appear to be coping quite well with absorbing this very sad news.
Category Archives: Hamer
Off track
You might have seen on the news tonight the article about the tram coming off the tracks on High Street, Kew? This was close to Hamer. You perhaps saw one of our Hamer resos, Saade, being interviewed about the incident!! He certainly had a few minutes of fame today!!
Enjoy.
We recently took in a new reso to Hamer – Wayne. The text below is from an email I received today from his worker – I hope that this puts much wind in the collective sails of all who read Heartbeat. We know that our work is appreciated – but it it lovely when this is articulated.
Hi Matt,
Just wanted to say thanks again for housing Wayne. I think we are lucky and I am appreciative that places like Servants exist to provide housing for those who are experiencing disadvantage in our community. I hope Wayne is settling in nicely and all is well.
Kind regards
Greg Solomon
Caseworker
Flagstaff Crisis Accommodation – The Salvation Army
House Rule changes @ Hamer
Hamer has had some rather unsavory incidents for management to deal with in recent times. Management has reached the, possibly inevitable, conclusion that for the sake and safety of residents and staff present and future that the house needs to become alcohol free. This comes into being as a 2-stage process. From the middle of next week alcohol may only be consumed in the privacy of one’s bedroom (as is the situation at Carrical) and from 1st February 2016 Hamer will be a dry house. Might there be some fallout and might we lose a few residents along the way? Yes to both questions, absolutely. But the short term pain will rapidly be outweighed by the advantages moving forwards.
Community Dinner #1
Saturday night we held the inaugural Community Dinner at Hamer. The visitors were a group from Trinity Grammar – current staff and old boys. It was a great success. We will be looking to host further Dinners there in the coming weeks.
Eviction
One of our Hamer resos was evicted last night, with VicPol assistance, following threats made to a Hamer Housekeeper. It was not a pleasant situation but events were handled as well as we would expect them to be. Our terrific relationship with the local cops was once again on display.
Alan’s reflection
I asked Alan and Ben, who recently finished their 4.5 month stint as temporary Housekeepers at Hamer, to write a short reflective piece on their time at Hamer. The following is from Alan ……..
After working at Servants for over two years, it became a whole new perspective to witness this world on the frontline as a Night Manager. I developed skills in listening, patience, and keeping a level head in difficult situations. What I have witnessed on many occasions is a strong sense of community, and that concepts such as friendship and belonging are so universal to everyone’s feelings of peace and security.
An important thing I learned in my experience is that first impressions count for so little. Some residents can display one persona but have an entirely different one underneath. One of the challenges but also joys of living with them was to try and discover what was underneath, to see who they truly are. I discovered the dangers of propagating an ‘us against them’ mentality between management and residents, too much of a divide creates a mistrust on both ends. When those barriers were broken, I could see mutual respect appear, and a stronger relationship develop.
One of my many joys has been to see positive changes in residents over time, and to feel personally involved in that. To see them quit drinking, or to start a new hobby or change of lifestyle, even just seeing them accept outside help, these are victories that sometimes were overshadowed by negative experiences, but those are the moments that I will always seek to positively reflect on. These are real people, with real lives, and with real problems. If I have in any way even had a small impact on their lives in a positive way, I will be truly thankful.
Hotel California
On Saturday night we held a special Community Dinner at Hamer to farewell Ben and Al, the temporary Housekeepers in the Donohoes’ absence. The boys did a terrific job in their 4.5 months at Hamer. They will be very much missed by the resos. I reminded Ben and Al that Servants is a little like the line from The Eagles song Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.’ They both seemed quite happy with this indupitable fact.
Hamer Trivia.
A group of folks from St Hilary’s Church in Kew hosted a BBQ and Trivia Night at Hamer on Saturday night. It was just terrific. Residents, guests and management alike had a great time.
Hamer lease.
The Hamer lease is, in true DHHS style, taking an absolute age to bring to the point of signing. This is frustrating. The Dept will send us a draft lease next week for our consideration. It will be a great relief when the lease is finally signed.
Hamer Trivia
There will be a BBQ at 5.30pm this Saturday at Hamer followed by a Trivia evening.
All welcome!!
London buses.
The similarity between London buses and vacancies at Hamer is strong.
You wait and wait and wait – and then they all come at once! In the past 4 weeks we have seen one female reso transfer to Romana (good move), one male move to aged care (good move) one male move to palliative care (good move) one former male reso move in and move out within a couple of weeks (just sad) and one male purchase a one-way ticket to his homeland of India (sad and potentially quite catastrophic move)
5 resos out of 28 moving on (mostly for excellent reasons) is a big number by anyone’s standards – and especially be ours. Of course, we have filled the vacancies very quickly and the empty room night total for Hamer for year to date is only 27.
Council and the Hamer lease.
On Monday evening Warren and I attended the Boroondara Council meeting where the issue of the future of the Hamer Court lease was dealt with. Councilors unanimously voted in favor of accepting Council officers recommendation that they be allowed to finalize the lease with the Dept. It was all very straightforward – but still very gratifying to see all the hands be raised!
If we are not quite ‘done and dusted’ we are most certainly well on the way! When all signed, sealed and delivered the new lease will take us from 1/7/2015 thru 30/6/2020.
BTW – if anyone wants to see a meeting run with chilling efficiency I suggest you go to a Council meeting. They are brutal affairs!!
Craig
Servants management, Hamer resos and Elder Keith from Canterbury Baps said goodbye to Hamer reso Craig today at a very fitting and dignified chapel service in Preston.
There was not one person present who was not connected to Servants.
A couple of Hamer resos spoke super well and we got to see again how the community at Hamer, whilst different to Carrical and Romana in many ways, is just that – a community that cares for its own and understands the importance of family.
Oven
Finally we have installed an oven for the onsite Managers at Hamer Court. Warren has quite a nice/amusing story to do with this ……………. perhaps he would be good enough to share it?!
CBC
I spoke at Canterbury Baptist Church this morning. It was a terrific opportunity to continue to solidify the already strong Servants/CBC relationship.
Interestingly CBC see their once a month meal involvement at Hamer as a KEY element of their outreach.
Many good things came out of our 2 years in Canterbury – arguably none better than the relationship with this very faithful group of people.
Craig Packard
Hamer Court reso Craig Packard passed away on-site on Tuesday. Carly discovered his body. Craig was a friendly, genial chap – and also a chronic drinker, smoker and pill-popper. Massively overweight he was a ticking time-bomb. We had housed Craig since November 2012.
Carrical and Hamer
In all the excitement re opening Romana I can assure you that Carrical and Hamer have not been forgotten! We had the disappointment last week of seeing a very sound Hamer reso unexpectedly leaving us to return to Adelaide – every cloud has a sliver lining and on this occasion the created vacancy was filled by a young man who for some inexplicable reason had been living at Ivy Grange for many months and had been badly assaulted 24 hours before I met him. Hamer management is working well and, overall, the house seems pretty settled.
Carrical has not seen any reso movement since late February. The house is peaceful. One of the resos is currently in an aged -care psych ward (should be home within a week or two) and one of the resos is at home and seriously struggling with psych issues but being carefully monitored by the Clarendon Clinic. All in all it is a very peaceful environment with several long-term resos saying it is the best it has ever been.
Crazy stat
A crazy stat for your viewing pleasure. The last resident movement in or out of Hamer was in late November last year. We are now a week into our fifth month with no movements. This stat tells us many things – the fact that we are largely putting appropriate people into the houses, that our model is working well and that there is a serious lack of quality housing ‘out there’ for our type of resos to access.
Fruit. Urban Seed.
In the last few days I sent our live-in House Manager PD at Hamer Court to Urban Seed, at their request, for them to send out to their networks and alumni to see if there would be any interest at all in any of their contacts taking over from the Donohoes at Hamer at the start of 2015. I am informed from US that the response has been very positive in terms of quantity of people who have contacted them displaying some interest. Good news!