It was a story that brought two old friends together and is now being used to highlight the plight of those living on the streets.
For 15 years Newcastle man Greg Westbrook didn’t have a roof over his head – instead he found himself alone, searching through garbage bins for food and sleeping wherever he could find shelter.
” One year there I had 6 months sleeping in a carport. All I had on the bottom of a cement floor was one sleeping bag with a blanket over the top.”
Something most of us couldn’t imagine and most likely will never have to endure.
Author Richard Convery went to high school with Greg, and many years later stumbled upon his old friend sitting on a park bench.
” When I saw him previously he was incredibly healthy, surfer, good looking guy, long hair, just the you know typical Aussie surfer and he was in the market to buy a new sports car, I saw him 18 months later and he was on the streets” Richard said.
Greg took to the streets after an inheritance from his father ran out, thinking it would be a short-term solution.
” I couldn’t believe the devastating transition that occurred in that space of time, it just rocked me to the core.” said Richard.
So much so that he put pen to paper, using Greg’s story as inspiration for his latest fiction novel titled ‘Will’, which aims to offer a little perspective on how rough it is living on the streets.
“Greg is an amazing man and he survived for 15 years. It’s freezing cold today and I’ve got a leather jacket on and warm clothes and I’m standing here shivering. Greg spent four and a half thousand nights in conditions we can’t even begin to imagine. He inspires me to no end” said Richard
But it wasn’t all that simple – the story started around 20 years before the hard copy finally reached the book shops.
Richard started writing in 2004, decades after he was originally reunited with Greg.
At that time he had no idea if Greg was still alive – and held off publishing until he’d finally tracked down his old friend.
The two are still in contact, with Greg writing the foreword to the book.
And it is easy to see how Greg’s story made such an impact on Richard when you meet him yourself.
” I was living outside, with no money, no support.”
“For the first few years it was incredibly difficult, I lived out of garbages for three years.”
“There are so many different elements to living outside and surviving that it’s not just a matter of having the food, it’s the shelter, it’s the lack of sleep.”
“In a sense you do become trapped just by your own circumstances.”
During his time Greg knew more than 10 people who died from drugs and alcohol abuse – something he said he never got tangled up in, which left him all on his own.
“Up to 10 people I have known on the street have died of overdoses, and all the alcoholics they all died. There are none of them left that I know of.”
He spent many of his years helping others to just survive.
” Someone that was available just to talk to, I gave no other advice but to encourage people to keep going day to day and that was all I ever done.”
The problem is greater than many think. Census data from 2011 estimates there are around 1,500 homeless people in the Hunter – but it’s believed the figure is in fact much higher.
Greg now has a roof over his head but says more needs to be done to pinpoint the reasons why people end up on the streets.
“There’s not a lot of public housing to go around, you get kids with parents living in the streets and in cars and I think there is a whole stigma around poverty, thinking that people have trapped themselves if they had worked harder, but it’s not possible for everybody to have a career or have a job and I think we treat those people who are under privileged really badly in society, because we leave them very little to do.”
” I think awareness of the actual poverty in society is important, and that’s what causes a lot of the homelessness, I mean broken homes, drug problems, kids leaving home because they can’t get on with their mum or dad or think they know a better way.”
