There are no statistics collected about the number of homeless people who die on the nation’s streets, but on the longest night of the year, these forgotten people were honoured. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
Sunday, June 21, marked the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere, the longest night of the year, and was the date chosen for Sydney’s homeless memorial, to offer attendees, mourners, and volunteers a small taste of how inhospitable life is on the streets.
More than 150 people joined the candlelight vigil at the Martin Place amphitheatre to commemorate the people who had died since last year’s memorial, and to express their hope for a better future for this “invisible” and growing underclass.
The event’s organiser, PAYCE Foundation director Dominic Sullivan, said the early evening cold and darkness was a reminder “we are not a city for all and that way too many are left behind.”
“Tonight we gather in Martin Place, the centre of business and commerce, home to banks and large companies and the Reserve Bank of Australia, a place we normally associate with prosperity and privilege,” he said.
“But here we also witness the other extreme: fellow Sydneysiders who struggle every day to survive without food and shelter.”
It was a “sad truth” that many deaths go unnoticed on the streets, he said.
“Many have no funeral service, no commemoration, no words to celebrate what was unique about them, their dreams, and their hopes.”
Other supporters of the annual memorial include the Sydney Archdiocese’s Justice and Peace Office, Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria, the St Vincent de Paul Society, and the End Street Sleeping Collaboration.
Catholic Cemeteries chief executive Lauren Hardgrove read out a list of 28 homeless people who had died over the past 12 months, noting there were more who were not listed.
“By speaking their names out loud tonight, we lift up their memory and ensure they have been known, respected, and loved,” she said.
“We remember them not for how they died or how they lived, but for the humanity that they carried and the place they held amongst us.”
FULL STORY
‘We lift up their memory’: Sydney centres its forgotten homeless in powerful memorial service (By Tara Kennedy, The Catholic Weekly)
