In February this year I read a story in the Good Weekend about Melbourne dentist Michelle Condello and her friendship with Ty, a homeless man she noticed one day in Russell Street on her way to the gym. It was June 2015, cold and wet and she stopped to pat his dog and have a chat, continuing the conversation each time she went past. She started to take him hot meals wrapped in foil and one day Ty had a bunch of roses for her and a handwritten note; Thanks for the bomb meals. Love Ty.
Ty’s parents had been strict disciplinarians who never hugged him or said they loved him. He was put into state care when he was nine and he became rebellious and angry after he was physically and sexually abused. Drugs had been part of his life, though he no longer wanted any part of them and he’d been in and out of adult jail.
Michelle started to help Ty with things like organising a microchip for his dog. She fixed up his teeth. She and her husband Vince were able to help him open a bank account and secure a small apartment. Last year they had a birthday dinner for him at their house, the first time Ty had ever had a birthday cake.
Ty says he doesn’t know where he would be now if it wasn’t for Michelle. Despite their different walks of life, they have become good friends and they talk about movies and politics. Michelle is the first person Ty calls when he’s stressed. She helps him when he’s sick and makes sure he has milk in the fridge and food in the cupboard. She says that as time has gone on Ty has stood up to the test of getting things done and sticking to routines, and although he comes across as full of bluff and bluster, he’s a softie at heart and desperate to have people around him who care.
My father-in-law Don is an avid reader of the Good Weekend too and this story inspired him to strike up a conversation with a homeless man he’d seen outside his local shopping centre in Wantirna. Each week he’d stop by for a friendly chat until one day he invited him to lunch at the local café where James revealed the sad family circumstances that had led to him becoming homeless. Like Ty, drugs had been part of his life and he was also struggling with poor health and mental illness.
He’d been close to giving up because he felt that no one cared. He knew where he could get food and sleep in relative safety, but he was aware of how the public saw him and he’d been abused at times, even spat on. He said the simple act of Don stopping by to have a genuine conversation and lending a sympathetic non-judgmental listening ear showed him someone cared and that gave him hope and dignity. He was desperate for a friend; someone he could trust, and Don became that friend.
Conversations with Melbourne’s homeless quickly open up a chaotic, complex and confronting web of rough lives, mental illness, family conflict and inevitable drugs.
Don and Michelle are my heroes for having these conversations, but they are also ordinary people who stopped to talk with someone sleeping rough and in doing so helped change their life.
What they didn’t expect was that it would change their lives too. As Michelle says, “I never expected to do anything like this, but you get great satisfaction helping someone who’s had a life like Ty has and seeing them flourish.”
Showing human kindness to Melbourne’s homeless
In February this year I read a story in the Good Weekend about Melbourne dentist Michelle Condello and her friendship with Ty, a homeless man she noticed one day in Russell Street on her way to the gym. It was June 2015, cold and wet and she stopped to pat his dog and have a chat, continuing the conversation each time she went past. She started to take him hot meals wrapped in foil and one day Ty had a bunch of roses for her and a handwritten note; Thanks for the bomb meals. Love Ty.
Ty’s parents had been strict disciplinarians who never hugged him or said they loved him. He was put into state care when he was nine and he became rebellious and angry after he was physically and sexually abused. Drugs had been part of his life, though he no longer wanted any part of them and he’d been in and out of adult jail.
Michelle started to help Ty with things like organising a microchip for his dog. She fixed up his teeth. She and her husband Vince were able to help him open a bank account and secure a small apartment. Last year they had a birthday dinner for him at their house, the first time Ty had ever had a birthday cake.
Ty says he doesn’t know where he would be now if it wasn’t for Michelle. Despite their different walks of life, they have become good friends and they talk about movies and politics. Michelle is the first person Ty calls when he’s stressed. She helps him when he’s sick and makes sure he has milk in the fridge and food in the cupboard. She says that as time has gone on Ty has stood up to the test of getting things done and sticking to routines, and although he comes across as full of bluff and bluster, he’s a softie at heart and desperate to have people around him who care.
My father-in-law Don is an avid reader of the Good Weekend too and this story inspired him to strike up a conversation with a homeless man he’d seen outside his local shopping centre in Wantirna. Each week he’d stop by for a friendly chat until one day he invited him to lunch at the local café where James revealed the sad family circumstances that had led to him becoming homeless. Like Ty, drugs had been part of his life and he was also struggling with poor health and mental illness.
He’d been close to giving up because he felt that no one cared. He knew where he could get food and sleep in relative safety, but he was aware of how the public saw him and he’d been abused at times, even spat on. He said the simple act of Don stopping by to have a genuine conversation and lending a sympathetic non-judgmental listening ear showed him someone cared and that gave him hope and dignity. He was desperate for a friend; someone he could trust, and Don became that friend.
Conversations with Melbourne’s homeless quickly open up a chaotic, complex and confronting web of rough lives, mental illness, family conflict and inevitable drugs.
Don and Michelle are my heroes for having these conversations, but they are also ordinary people who stopped to talk with someone sleeping rough and in doing so helped change their life.
What they didn’t expect was that it would change their lives too. As Michelle says, “I never expected to do anything like this, but you get great satisfaction helping someone who’s had a life like Ty has and seeing them flourish.”
Jane Pemberton
24 September 2018