How COVID19 Harms the Homeless
Written By: P. Lux
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names and descriptions of people who have died, including descriptions of their deaths.
The homeless within our society struggle on a daily basis to access basic needs like food and clothing, let alone emergency accommodation. As the Coronavirus pandemic hit and many businesses shut down or ran out of stock, those on the bottom of the capitalist food chain felt the effects the most. Volunteer-run food services either completely stopped operating in fear of their volunteers contracting Coronavirus, or were forced to drastically reduce outreach.(1)(2)(3) Remaining food services saw a massive drop in donations as Woolworths and Coles shelves emptied.(4) Meanwhile, the need for food support has skyrocketed.(5)
Police enforcing hurriedly drafted social distancing legislation have shamelessly told homeless people they can't sleep rough and given move on orders.(6) Increased police harassment and limited food services have forced homeless people to congregate in larger groups, increasing risk of transmission.(7)
Homelessness both causes and exacerbates existing health problems(8), and homeless people suffer heightened risk of chronic conditions such as asthma, emphysema and diabetes that significantly increase health risks associated with Coronavirus.(9)(10) It’s estimated that 30 per cent of Sydney's homeless population have respiratory issues(11), while 62% of homeless people surveyed in a Perth study reported "a diagnosis of a serious health condition including kidney disease, liver disease, diabetes, asthma, cancer, tuberculosis, emphysema and heart disease".(12) Homeless people already have a life expectancy up to 30 years lower than the general population.(13)
When we think of homelessness we generally only picture rough sleepers, but the largest group of people experiencing homelessness live in severely crowded dwellings(14) (defined as “a dwelling which requires 4 or more extra bedrooms to accommodate the people who usually live there")(15). It's not hard to imagine the dangers the pandemic poses here; crowded housing significantly increases risk of infection for both inhabitants and the broader community.(16)(17)
The risks are even greater for First Nations people, who comprise only 3.3% of the total Australian population but 20% of the homeless population(18) and have a life expectancy 8-9 years lower than the non-Indigenous population.(19) Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of both hospitalisation and death of Indigenous people, and is among the biggest contributors to the gap in total disease burden between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.(20) First Nations people are 2.1 times more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer, 3.5 times more likely to have diabetes and twice as likely to have asthma.(21)(22)
Those of us who have never struggled with homelessness may not be familiar with the various accessibility boundaries homeless people face in their day to day lives, especially when it comes to getting support. How do you access healthcare if you don't have any ID? What if you've been sleeping rough and it's been stolen, or you've had to leave it behind when fleeing an abusive relationship? How do you access a hotel or a backpacker’s for the night (both require ID)? How do you apply for a rental property, or a job, or a loan, or even a bank account?(23). How do you keep in touch with a support network of friends and family while self-isolating if you don’t have internet access, a phone and money for credit?(24) How do you navigate these hardships under the added burden of mental illness?(25) How can you plan for treating trauma, depression, anxiety and despair when you have to worry about finding a place to sleep for the night?(26) In Victoria alone, over 500 people a year are discharged straight from acute mental health care into homelessness.(27)
“The risks are even greater for First Nations people, who comprise only 3.3% of the total Australian population but 20% of the homeless population”
While hoarders stock up on hand sanitiser, homeless people often don’t have the option of washing their hands when they get home. They can’t maintain safe social distances in severely overcrowded dwellings, or easily wash and disinfect their belongings if concerned they might be contaminated. They can’t chat with their mates or their counsellor on Zoom if they need support. They can’t access Centrelink if they don’t have ID, or easily access a doctor without a Medicare card. They can't suddenly expect support from a societal safety net that has never been there for them in the past.
Then of course, we come to one of the most egregious and predictable causes of increased harm to homeless people during this crisis: cops.
From issuing thousands in fines to individuals sleeping rough(28), forcing them to 'move on' (where are they supposed to go exactly?)(29)(30) and carrying out arbitrary searches(31), police and council harassment of homeless people has accelerated sharply.
Coronavirus ‘public health’ policing has predictably targeted migrant, Indigenous and poor communities.(32) Statistics from the only state to release detailed data about people fined under COVID19 orders (NSW) revealed “limited correlation between suburbs with high infection rates and those where most infringements” were handed out.(33) Localities in Sydney’s west, which represented only 5% of recorded COVID19 cases, accounted for the largest clusters of infringements. They also “have lower levels of educational attainment and higher levels of people born overseas than the rest of the state”.(34)
As PhD researcher in racial profiling Tamar Hopkins noted: "Infections are from the elite, the wealthy who have been able to travel overseas, yet the police enforcement is going to be on the most vulnerable in our society, the most already targeted.”(35)
On April 11 Perth police issued a group of homeless Indigenous people with 10-minute move on orders, threatened to arrest them if they didn't pack up their stuff fast enough (including one woman with a broken arm) and threw any belongings they weren't able to collect in time in a garbage truck.(36) WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson later described this act as police "being as sympathetic as we can".
“Why can we not just do the work that's there that would help make a better society? Because we live under capitalism, and work is done for capitalist profit not for social benefit”
On April 3 in Melbourne, police found Yorta Yorta and Mutti Mutti man Dwayne Kennedy sleeping on a park bench, fined him for being outside his house and arrested him for failure to appear at court, despite him not being required to due to COVID19 emergency restrictions.(37) He was jailed for two –weeks – another shining example of police being as sympathetic as they can.
The harsher effects of the pandemic faced by homeless people, from increased police harassment to less food access to heightened health risks, is something we should take pause to think about. Specifically, we should ask ourselves why it has to be this way at all.
Why, when there is enough housing in Australia to provide for everyone, are people forced to sleep on the street or in severely overcrowded housing? The 2016 census counted 116,000 homeless people across Australia(38) and an extra 200,000 more homes sitting empty over the last decade, along with "up to a million homes with three or more extra bedrooms than the owner required".(39) There are 60,000 empty dwellings in Victoria alone(40), and approximately 25,000 homeless people.(41) So why don’t we just use these houses to house people?
Because we live under capitalism, and housing is treated as an asset, not a need.
Housing policy is based on what will make landlords, developers and bankers richer - not what people need.(42) As long as housing is a commodity to be privately bought, leased and sold it will only ever be treated as an asset for increasing profit. It benefits capitalists for housing to be scarce. If housing were readily available for people to simply live in, how would capitalists profit off it?
Why are people forced into poverty and unemployment in the first place when there is so much work to be done? Impending climate destruction looms and we could be working on building renewable energy infrastructure and carrying out valuable reforestation. Public transport, sustainable agriculture, education and cultural infrastructure are always there to be improved for the benefit of everyone. More support services could be created and homes built for people fleeing domestic violence (the leading cause of homelessness)(43). People could be trained in health care (both physical and mental), aged care and disability support. Why can we not just do the work that's there that would help make a better society?
Because we live under capitalism, and work is done for capitalist profit not for social benefit.
“Homeless people still serve a function in a capitalist society - they function as a warning to workers of what happens if we don't submit to exploitation”
Even when creating homelessness isn’t a policy goal, homeless people still serve a function in a capitalist society - they function as a warning to workers of what happens if we don't submit to exploitation by capitalists. They reinforce the need to keep selling our labour for someone else's profit so we don’t face the same fate. They serve as a reserve army of labour, enabling capitalists to keep wages low by maintaining a desperate workforce.(44) As long as work is precarious capitalists are free to undermine labour conditions and minimise costs. As Fred and Harry Magdoff explain,
"...there is not an absolute surplus population, but rather a surplus in the context of a society ruled by the profit motive and the golden rule of accumulation for the sake of accumulation.... there would be no surplus of labor if everyone had enough to eat, a decent place to live, health care, and education, and workers had shorter work hours and longer vacations so they could have more leisure and creative time. ... Treating labor as a disposable and/or easily replaceable part of the production process promotes capitalism’s central driving force—the never-ending drive to accumulate wealth."(45)
Finally, why do First Nations people continue to suffer worse than anyone? Why are their health outcomes so poor? Why are their homelessness rates so high? Why are their poverty rates so high?(46) Why is their suicide rate so high?(47)
Because our society is founded on their extermination, and that extermination is ongoing.
As David Day wrote in Claiming a Continent:
“A capitalist system built on the exploited labour and alienation of the masses has no interest in listening to calls for self-determination and justice”
"More than anything ... the history of modern Australia has been the ongoing story of the struggle by European Australians to claim the continent of Australia as their own. Using methods that range from brutal massacres of the original Aboriginal inhabitants to the more subtle appropriating of Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, European Australians during more than 200 years have tried to supplant the claims that countless generations of Aborigines have established over their separate territories during a period of occupation that stretches back for tens of thousands of years.”(48)
This struggle to claim the continent requires ongoing brutality with ongoing consequences for the livelihood of First Nations people. First Nations' land continues to be stolen(49)(50). First Nations children continue to be taken from their families at rates exceeding the numbers removed throughout the Stolen Generations.51 First Nations people continue to be incarcerated en masse, accounting for over a quarter of the prison population.52 First Nations people continue to die in custody, leaving families and communities broken. More than 400 First Nations people have died in custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991.(53)
Dwayne Kennedy was still mourning the death of his sister, Veronica Nelson Walker, when he was arrested on that park bench in Collingwood. She died in January while on remand in Victoria’s maximum security women’s prison. Inmates say they heard her screaming for help.(54)
Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, well known in the Melbourne activist community for her heartfelt and relentless commitment to justice and autonomy for homeless people, was killed by the same mistreatment in custody.(55) In her family's final submission to the inquest into her death they wrote in her voice:
"I need you to see and to acknowledge that my death was caused by the same system that killed my uncle, Harrison Day, the same system that dispossessed and killed so many of my ancestors and so many other Aboriginal people; that fractured our communities and culture, and caused deep intergenerational trauma. If you don’t do that, nothing will change."(56)
These injustices against First Nations people continue on this continent because we live in a capitalist, colonialist society. First Nations people will not be ‘saved’ by the same forces that brutally stole their sovereignty and autonomy, because First Nations' prosperity and health is contradictory to the goal of settler colonial, capitalist profit.
“Infections are from the wealthy who have been able to travel overseas, yet the police enforcement is going to be on the most vulnerable in our society, the most already targeted”
A capitalist system built on the exploited labour and alienation of the masses has no interest in listening to calls for self-determination and justice.
A colonial system built on supplanting Indigenous people and seizure of resources does not even need their labour - it simply requires them to disappear.
This doesn't need to be achieved through total extermination - eradication of their social, physical and mental power is the next best step. As Bruce Pascoe wrote: "Invaders like to kill the original owners of the soil they intend to plunder; but, even better than that, they like to humiliate them."(57)
The ongoing dispossession of First Nations people requires ongoing cruelty, displacement and harm, and it continues to cause the profound torment we only see glimpses of in harrowing statistics.
So what should we do? The liberal answer is more government funding for punitive and paternalistic programs and more money given to charities that profit off of poverty.(58)(59)(60)(61). More studies into what’s ‘going wrong’ in First Nations communities, while money is continually ripped from First Nations-led organisations6263 and plunged into the pockets of politicians’ mates and mining companies(64)(65).
None of these answers will ever work, because nothing but socialist revolution and decolonisation can overcome the fundamental contradictions within capitalism, that require a society of wage slaves and dispossessed Indigenous peoples to suffer so that the system can function. Nothing but a socialist society can truly serve the needs of the people and nothing but Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination can begin to heal the damage of colonisation.
We need to build mass organisations led and run by poor, working and oppressed people to force societal change, rather than asking for it. We need to organise the poor to build systems of mutual aid and collective power, enabling us to provide for each other rather than relying on scraps from capitalists(66)(67). We need to organise workers to run the means of production for the benefit of all of us, not for capitalist profit. We need to support First Nations self-determination and sovereignty - not paternalistic, colonial government management of First Nations lives and the ongoing environmental plunder of this continent by corporations.
Of course - while overthrowing this system, seizing the means of production, disbanding the police, taking back all empty housing and decolonising the nation are things we need to always be aiming for, it’s hard to put them into practical steps we can take tomorrow. These things will not come about through anything but active, ongoing participation in the building of revolutionary consciousness and organised social and economic collective power.
Here are some ideas about where we can start:
1. Get Involved In Mutual Aid
Support your local community, put up leaflets letting people know how you can help, making sure you're engaging with those that might be easily excluded (such as homeless people, migrants, refugees and the elderly). The efforts of local Sikh communities, neighbourhood Coronavirus mutual aid groups and the Community Union Defence League(68) in continuing to feed people throughout this crisis serve as examples of how communities can do the work themselves to meet people’s survival needs. Don’t just work alone - join or form an organisation that you can keep building.
But be wary of just repeating the charity model. Mutual aid such as this cannot be our end - it is only a means of helping each other survive and learning while we fight to change the system. Let historical examples of revolutionary, community led survival programs, such as those instituted by the Black Panther Party, be your inspiration and your guide.(69) As Huey P Newton, co-founder and chief ideologue of the BPP said of their work:
“All these programs satisfy the deep needs of the community, but they are not solutions to our problems. That is why we call them survival programs, meaning survival pending revolution. We say that the survival program of the Black Panther Party is like the survival kit of a sailor stranded on a raft. It helps him to sustain himself until he can get completely out of that situation. So, the survival programs are not answers or solutions, but they will help us to organise the community around a true analysis and understanding of their situation. When consciousness and understanding is raised to a high level then the community will seize the time and deliver themselves from the boot of their oppressors.”(70)
2. Support Community Led Organisations and Self-determination
Support local migrant, First Nations, poor and working class organisations that are run by the people (not corporately structured charities or government services). Support organisations that believe in revolution and decolonisation as the answer - not reforming capitalism. Support them through ongoing action, not just showing up to the odd protest or sharing their stuff online. Look into what practical jobs need to be done all the time for these organisations to grow and start doing them.(71)
One way you can contribute is financially through campaigns such as “Pay the Rent”, which helps Indigenous-led organisations to improve conditions in their communities, reclaim cultural practices, languages and land, and defend against environmental destruction, police brutality and racism.(72)(73)(74) “Paying the rent” supports First Nations people to lead and determine their own struggles.
3. Fight Back Against Austerity - Take and Create What People Need and Deserve.
Are there buildings in your area that sit empty? Demand they're put to use, not just through this crisis, but long term. Take them over and put them to use. Think of what these spaces could be used for if they were run by the community for the community - not businesses for profit. How many people could they help if they were used to house the homeless, or people fleeing domestic violence? Demand that public housing not be sold to private developers. Picket, campaign, get organised and create the collective power necessary to force spaces to be utilised by and for the community.
Communicate with your neighbours, friends and workmates and organise on the ground to prevent people from being evicted. Join the rent strike7576. Join or create a tenants union.
Join your union (unless it’s the SDA - join RAFFWU instead) and be active. Become a delegate in your workplace. Organise against poor wages and conditions. Explain to your fellow workers that bosses profit off of their unpaid labour - but it doesn’t have to be that way.
4. Don't Snitch
Do not snitch. Do not put people in your community at risk of police brutality and possible death. Do not force the added financial burden of arbitrary fines on poor people. Communicate with each other and find solutions that don’t involve police. Do not legitimise a police force that harasses, brutalises and murders poor, migrant and First Nations people. Strong communities make police obsolete. Support people in your community that may need help. Reach out, help them explore options, provide support and link them in with others who can help.
5. Don't be a parasite
Think of your community, not just yourself and your family. Hoarding has made it harder for many charities and individuals in need to buy staple foods and necessities. Hand sanitiser means a lot more to a homeless person without ready access to a sink than it does to you.
Don’t be a landlord. If you own property and cannot live in it for whatever reason, charge only what you need to cover costs, not to make a profit or save for your retirement. If your tenant is paying your mortgage they are providing your housing, not the other way around. If you profit off of someone else’s labour you’re being a parasite. If you have an inheritance and the means to purchase excess property then use it to provide spaces and resources for poor and marginalised people.
If you own a business, pay workers equally for the work you all do. Run it cooperatively and democratically. Make every worker an equal owner in the business.
6. Fight Long Term
Perhaps the most important point is not to be a “band-aid activist”. Don’t jump from issue to issue only ever seeking the immediate concessions capitalism may be able to provide as ‘solutions’. Do not accept the ‘left’ side of a capitalist two-party system as the only viable answer. If we fight that way we will never win, we will only ever be granted fleeting gains that can be ripped away from us at any moment. There is no bargaining with this system.. We will only ever win scraps until we change this system entirely into one run by and for the people.
We need to build revolutionary groups of poor, working-class and oppressed communities that can support and learn from each other. We need to build a principled, democratic organisation of the working masses that can force change and defeat capitalist and colonialist attacks on our livelihoods, our working conditions and the environment.
Restrictions are already being eased across the country, and as we return to ‘normal’ we will be told we have to sacrifice wages and welfare for the good of the economy. New police powers put in place during the crisis will likely not be fully rescinded77, and will be further utilised to harass homeless, migrant and First Nations communities and restrict political activism. Homeless people who have been put up in hotels to self-isolate will be tossed onto the street once again. Houses will continue to sit empty and First Nations people will continue to die behind bars.
We must not allow comfort and laziness to lull us into inaction and disorganisation. People will continue to suffer as long as we live under this vicious and unjust system. We have a world to win.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/homelessness-charities-hard-hit-by-covid-19-pandemic/12071758
2 https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/homelessness-in-the-time-of-coronavirus
3 https://www.sbs.com.au/news/concerns-for-australia-s-homeless-community-as-coronavirus-continues-to-spread
4 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/coronavirus-demand-spike-tasmania-food-charity-loaves-and-fishes/12240314
5 https://www.smh.com.au/national/demand-for-emergency-food-skyrockets-20200502-p54p75.html
6 https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeless-with-nowhere-to-go-told-they-can-t-sleep-rough-20200326-p54e54.html
7 ibid
8 https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2018/taking-health-care-homeless
9 https://www.csi.edu.au/media/STATE_OF_HOMELESSNESS_REPORT_FINAL.pdf
10 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/hypertension-diabetes-conditions-that-make-coronavirus-more-deadly-2020-3?r=US&IR=T
11 https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeless-with-nowhere-to-go-told-they-can-t-sleep-rough-20200326-p54e54.html
12 https://www.supremecourt.wa.gov.au/equaljustice/H/homelessness_print.aspx
13 http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/2018090310917/research/housing-and-health-care-key-tackling-australias-homeless-crisis
14 https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/publications/research-papers/download/36-research-papers/13859-homelessness-in-victoria-clients-of-specialist-homelessness-services-2016-17#_ftn10
15 https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/54e0338cb1f6c896ca257a7500148dfe!OpenDocument
16 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?ua=1
17 https://theconversation.com/homelessness-and-overcrowding-expose-us-all-to-coronavirus-heres-what-we-can-do-to-stop-the-spread-134378
18 https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/2049.0Media%20Release12016
19 https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/healthinfonet/getContent.php?linkid=621156&title=Summary+of+Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+health+status+2018&contentid=36479_1
20 ibid
21 ibid
22 https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/learn/health-topics/respiratory-health/
23 https://www.abc.net.au/life/coronavirus-while-being-homeless-is-scary-lonely-and-dangerous/12102122
24 ibid
25 https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-n-report13-toc~mental-pubs-n-report13-3~mental-pubs-n-report13-3-4~mental-pubs-n-report13-3-4-ind19
26 https://theconversation.com/from-hospital-to-homeless-victorias-mental-health-system-fails-the-most-vulnerable-119883
27 https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/more-go-straight-from-psychiatric-hospital-into-homelessness-20180419-p4zamr.html
28 https://covidpolicing.org.au/summary/2020-05-04/covidpolicing-weekly-roundup-4/
29 https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeless-with-nowhere-to-go-told-they-can-t-sleep-rough-20200326-p54e54.html)(https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2020/04/11/homeless-aboriginal-people-perth-given-move-notices-wa-police
30 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/no-place-for-homeless-sunshine-coast-man-with-cancer/10985206?nw=0
31 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/18/forced-by-coronavirus-to-close-its-doors-to-the-homeless-wayside-chapel-hits-the-streets
32 https://www.sbs.com.au/news/concerns-police-using-coronavirus-powers-to-target-marginalised-communities-in-australia
33 https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/health/2020/04/18/compliance-fines-under-the-microscope/15871320009710
34 ibid
35 ibid
36 https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2020/04/11/homeless-aboriginal-people-perth-given-move-notices-wa-police
37 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-22/vulnerable-indigenous-man-jailed-over-police-errors-coronavirus/12165342
38 https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-to-triple-its-social-housing-by-2036-this-is-the-best-way-to-do-it-105960
39 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/census-snapshot-one-million-homes-left-empty-across-australia-20170717-gxcpiw.html
40 https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/melbourne-s-60-000-vacant-houses-uncovered
41 http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/ljf/site/templates/resources/$file/Homelessness_VIC.pdf
42 https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/capitalism-affordable-housing-rent-commodities-profit
43 https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/homelessness-services/specialist-homelessness-services-2016-17/contents/contents
44 https://monthlyreview.org/2004/04/01/disposable-workers-todays-reserve-army-of-labor/
45 ibid
46 https://caepr.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/income-poverty-and-inequality
47 https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/3303.0~2018~Main%20Features~Intentional%20self-harm%20in%20Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20people~4
48 David Day, Claiming a Continent, 2001 Harper Collins Publishers Pty Ltd
49 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/31/queensland-extinguishes-native-title-over-indigenous-land-to-make-way-for-adani-coalmine
50 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-indigenous-australians-are-still-fighting-their-lands-25-years-after-landmark-court-case-180963893/
51 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/17/the-stolen-generations-never-ended-they-just-morphed-into-child-protection
52 https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0~2018~Main%20Features~Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20prisoner%20characteristics%20~13
53 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2018/aug/28/deaths-inside-indigenous-australian-deaths-in-custody
54 https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/homeless-man-imprisoned-for-sleeping-on-a-park-bench
55 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/24/tanya-day-death-custody-inquest-family-want-answers
56 https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/my-name-is-tanya-louise-day-family-s-final-submission-to-coroner-20191108-p538y3.html
57 Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, 2018, Magabala Books
58 https://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Chief_Executive_Officer_(CEO)%2C_Non-Profit_Organization/Salary
59 https://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Employer=Society_of_St._Vincent_De_Paul/Salary
60 https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2019/02/cdp-fines-causing-stress-anxiety-indigenous-job-seekers/
61 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/17/aboriginal-people-who-work-for-dole-told-to-attend-group-activities-despite-coronavirus-risk
62 https://www.smh.com.au/national/unacceptable-indigenous-funding-cuts-a-breach-of-faith-20191210-p53ip6.html
63 https://indigenousx.com.au/we-do-not-need-a-special-envoy-we-need-our-leaders-to-listen/
64 https://indigenousx.com.au/why-is-100m-in-sports-funding-worth-more-than-5b-in-indigenous-funding/
65 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/09/mining-giant-given-millions-in-grant-by-coalition-from-fund-for-indigenous-disadvantage
66 https://kairoscenter.org/beyond-mutual-aid
67 https://www.auscp.org.au/communist-homeless
68 https://www.cudl.org.au
69 https://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/hilliard-ed-the-black-panther-party-service-to-the-people-programs.pdf
70 https://www.auscp.org.au/communist-homeless
71 https://junkee.com/invasion-day-solidarity/241596
72 https://www.actionreadyqld.com/pay-the-rent
73 https://paytherent.net.au
74 https://www.invasionday.org/pay-the-rent-campaigns
75 https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/covid-19-rent-strike-pledge
76 https://www.facebook.com/covid19rentstrike/
77 https://www.smh.com.au/national/laws-created-in-a-crisis-are-very-rarely-rolled-back-20200331-p54foj.html