‘Small things mean a huge thing’: Meet the NSW Local Hero fighting homelessness with wraparound love

Theresa, why do you do what you do?

I believe strongly that people deserve the basics in life, which is, you know, food, shelter, clothing, you know, obviously oxygen, and then of course a sense of belonging. 

And Maslow’s hierarchy of needs actually goes into that – if people don’t have the basics in life, we can’t expect them to be socially available and to be able to fit into society well, if they are lacking those basics. What I’ve done is I’ve focused on a holistic approach, and as of the new year, I’ll be a registered clinical psychologist focusing on research and looking to do my PhD next year. I want to change policy to support homelessness with supported holistic approaches. 

What does Agape Outreach offer?

We’ve got a psychology department, a counselling department, a life coach who’s teaching resilience skills and doing life coaching, one-to-one. We have showers, laundry access, our op shop clothes people. We have basic life skills training, like barista classes, cooking classes. We even have CPD (continuing professional development) accredited alcohol and drug and mental health training. So, we’re really trying to encompass that holistic approach, and then we want to add to the model later with housing, once we can get into that field and duplicate that around Australia. I believe that holistic wraparound sense of love at first, just like housing first, needs to happen all over Australia, and then, maybe, parts of it could be taken on around the world as well, because people are suffering. 

What does the Australian of the Year Local Hero nomination mean for you?

I’m hoping it will open some doors, because we’re non-funded, so I have to cut into my time every week with fundraising, to be able to keep our doors open. The government’s not paying for us to be here doing what we do, yet the economic benefit of reducing crime, improving the social cohesion of people that are in trauma and pain on the streets, you know, feeding so many people at risk of homelessness that are in food insecurity and keeping them out of hospitals from lack of nutrition, the return on benefit would be absolutely huge. There's no reason why that shouldn't be funded. We’re really in need of the community coming on board and giving us donations so that we can spend more time hands on. To fundraise, we have a comedy night, have fundraisers along the way, and I run the Heart of Women Awards, a national award recognising women in the community during international women’s week.

Over Christmas, our drive is to support 2000 people, and we’re asking people to sponsor a plate – $25 for a Christmas meal for somebody who needs one. We’ll also be giving out food hampers and Christmas gifts.

How many people does Agape Outreach help?

Last year, we did 48,713 hot meals and 8,609 food hampers. We had 2,217 go through our case management for support for housing, while we also rescued 104.6 tonnes of food from the community, which we repurposed back into our supports, and we provided 2,857 showers.   

What do you do away from work, Theresa?

Well, I’ve been in uni for the last seven years, finishing my three degrees to become a clinical psychologist, so my one day a week off has been assignments at uni. I’m actually on placement. I’ve done a year and a half of placements, two days a week, which I’ve been balancing with work. I see next year being a little bit slower and I’m going to plan a couple of trips overseas, including a trip where I’m planning to take a team over as a fundraiser for Agape Outreach to work in the Philippines. I try and make my social life beneficial to my work life because it’s so time poor. 

That doesn’t sound like much of a holiday.

It’s still something I want to do, just like the Heart of Women Awards is me getting dressed up one night of the year. I’m ADHD and I think that’s the only reason I’ve survived doing what I do because I’m always on a different topic. If I wasn't busy, I’d feel like something was wrong. 

What’s the best thing about what you do? After 17 years, what do you love?

I’d say changing people's lives, but maybe it’s not quite the right wording. 

It’s being a part of people’s lives as they change. I say to all my volunteers, we’re stepping stones. We can’t fix anything. We are just a piece in their puzzle, and if we expect to fix it, then we’re going to burn out. But seeing a young family into housing and having the children so excited about having their own bedroom, it’s a really rare thing, but it’s something really exciting. Being there to hug a woman escaping domestic violence who’s just got out of hospital, and letting her know that she’s got someone there to walk with her through the next steps and hold her hand through court and stuff like that. It’s not “Yahoo, we’re there!” but it is a “We’re here”, and that means something. 

Just a couple of days ago, I had a guy in case management say to me, “Theresa, do you remember giving me a meal 10 years ago over there under the tree on the beach?” 

And I said, no, not at all, there have been a few since then, but it shows us and reminds us that those small things we do every single day mean a huge thing to people who don’t have anything, and even though it’s just something we do every day, and becomes the norm, it doesn’t mean it’s not big. 

On the flipside, how stressful is your work?

I’ve found that going into the leadership role means that you are the behavioural management person and you get caught up, every single day, dealing with poor behaviours, and it gets really hard to focus on those positive, nice little interactions. 

Becoming a clinical psychologist, I’m writing into my day when I have my psychology hours, which means I am not running the centre in these times. The case managers will have to deal with poor behaviours in those times, which breaks it up a little bit for me, because I was really getting burnt out with doing that all the time. It is such a small component, people with poor behaviours or substance abuse and stuff like that, in the numbers that we help, but it becomes overwhelming in your head if it’s all you are seeing all day long. 

More information

Agape Outreach website

To support Agape Outreach’s Christmas appeal, click here.