Meet the woman who stumbled into a community housing job and found her home

Davina, you’ve been at Mission Australia for 18 years. How did that come about?

I honestly never thought at the very start that I would be here 18 years later. But I’ve been in the community housing sector for close to 25 years now, and like most people in the sector, I fell into it. I wasn’t necessarily looking to work in community housing, but I wanted an entry way into a not-for-profit organisation, and a job came up as a receptionist at another organisation. When I joined Mission Australia, they were just setting up a community housing project and wanted to really dive into long-term solutions for homelessness. I think historically it had been a space of crisis accommodation, casework and transitional accommodation, but Mission Australia had recognised that long-term housing is absolutely fundamental, and so I came on board to help set up the operational part, writing policies and procedures, and setting up staff, tenancy tools and resources we would need.

Had you studied logistics or policy?

No, I studied psychology. I have a Bachelor of Applied Social Science, and I wanted to work for a frontline service in youth mental health or something like that. When I took on that first job as a receptionist for a small housing provider in Redfern [NSW], to get a foot in the door, I didn’t think it was very glamorous or exciting, but as I tell my team now, I realised very quickly, this was meaty and exciting because you’re changing people’s lives. Housing is so foundational and is the key to stability, safety and security, and people can’t address all the other things going on in their lives, like maybe mental health issues or an active addiction, until they have a safe and stable place to call home.

Why do you think you’ve stayed so long at Mission Australia?

It has just been this incredible, extraordinary journey at Mission Australia of being able to be a part of setting up an organisation that is now providing such an amazing service, but then also having a hand in watching it grow and changing lives and just being a part of something really, really special. We’ve grown in those 18 years from having 17 homes in western Sydney when we started, on the 1st of April in 2009, and we’ve got just shy of 5,000 homes now. It’s been this amazing experience, getting to be a part of this organisation that’s doing incredible things.

Do many people stay as long as you have with the organisation?

It’s actually phenomenal how many people have been here 20 or 30 years. I’m so impressed. I think it is one of those organisations where people truly live their values with an incredibly passionate and engaged team that are all here for the right reasons. I think it makes it very hard to leave because you’re doing something you love with people that are really aligned with values and passion.

What’s your role these days?
 

I’m executive general manager of housing operations, leading the teams that provide all the frontline services and support across our tenants’ communities, and looking after our properties. It’s about my tenth role within Mission Australia and I have been fortunate, I think, to grow with the business and build trust and take on new roles as we’ve grown.

As general manager, do you still get to be in touch with individual clients – the people whose lives you help change?

I don't get to do as much of it these days, but some of my most memorable moments have been about that. We have a facility in Camperdown called Common Ground, which is a unique model of housing that provides housing and support to people who are long-term homeless. One of the first people I met at that site was a man named David, who’s since passed away, but he had been homeless for more than 30 years, and I was fortunate enough to give him the keys to his property and help him get set up. Just watching this man go from having been homeless for 30-plus years to sustaining his tenancy for more than 10 years, before he eventually passed away. He had a safe and stable home and he had built a community and built support networks. I think it is incredibly special to have been a small part of so many tenant stories and journeys. 

Seeing the faces of people and hearing their stories when you are offering them these amazing new homes, and hearing their stories about where they’ve come from, how long they have been waiting and their housing instability, is pretty phenomenal. I’m someone that gets emotional at the best of times, but it’s pretty moving.

It must be difficult for somebody like David to accept that he truly has a home after 30-plus years of insecurity.

It is maybe not really known outside the sector, but that transition is incredibly hard for people and it takes a really long time. Some of our rough sleepers will be offered a home but it might take them two or three months to spend more than a couple of hours at a time in that home. They’re used to sleeping rough and not used to the safety and security and the quietness that a home brings. There is a lot of work that our support staff and our tenancy staff do to really take that journey with people and support them along the way. You mentioned David. We often provide furniture packages, including new toasters and kettles and things like that because they’re not coming with a lot of possessions or furniture, and David was quite nervous because he couldn’t work out how to use a toaster. He’d never had one before. It was a moment that hit home for all of us.

What’s your life away from work? How do you relax?

I’m a single mother to a very active nine-year-old daughter, Bonnie, so that is two full-time jobs! I’m very fortunate that I get to live in a beautiful community, Austinmer,  a tiny suburb about 15 kilometres north of Wollongong and about 60 kilometres south of Sydney. It’s a beach community and you feel a million miles away from Sydney traffic and noise. 

Mission Australia is really flexible with work, and that has enabled me to be a single parent but also to thrive in my career, and that’s also supported me to stay with the organisation.

What are your goals from here with Mission Australia? What’s next?

Right now, we’ve got a really ambitious strategy to deliver 10,000 homes by 2030, and I think my whole focus, and my whole team’s focus, is delivering on that strategy and making sure we’re not just delivering new homes, but we’re delivering all the support and the services that people need to thrive in those homes. That’s going to be my focus for the next few years.