Home search plea for Glenn

Glenn Cameron has spent years living on the streets of Busselton, but as time marches forward and weather patterns become more extreme, he knows something has to change.

Mr Cameron has found support in Mana Kai Cafe owner Kim Lister and Busselton mother Kiri Yates, who have encouraged Mr Cameron to find a warmer, safer place to live after being sent to hospital several times with a massive bone infection.

Mr Cameron this week told theTimes he was ready to accept help and hoped to find a home soon.

Support services are working to find accommodation for Mr Cameron, but Ms Yates said it was a lengthy process and they had been met with “bureaucracy, red tape and closed doors”.

“This is a plea to the public,” she said.

“We’re hoping the community can be the ones to open doors.”

Ms Yates said a long-term home would be preferable, but anything for the next four to five weeks with a shower and a toilet until support services could find an appropriate home would help.

“And he can pay,” she said.

“He gets a disability pension, so he can pay about $100 a week.”

Ms Lister said the two women would continue to support Mr Cameron and all he needed was an “open door and open heart”.

She said some people felt OK about Mr Cameron sleeping on the streets because they clung to the belief he “chooses to live like that” or believed unfounded rumours he was a millionaire.

Ms Lister said there was absolutely no truth to the rumours and pointed out “situations change”.

“Yes, two years ago Glenn probably would have said, ‘Stuff you, I’m fine on the streets, I like it here’, but he’s an older man now and his situation is completely different,” she said.

“And there are reasons he refused help.

“He has his own set of problems.”

Mr Cameron has been homeless on and off for more than three decades after a motorbike accident put him in a coma for almost a year and left him with damage to his arm, leg and brain.

In 2010, Mr Cameron told theTimes he was happy to live on the streets of Busselton because it was relatively safe.

But Ms Lister said in recent years, this had also changed.

“Kids in the park steal his bankcard on a Tuesday when he gets his disability pension,” she said.

“They bash him, they steal his money, they pick on him.

“I’m not going to rock up in the carpark and find him dead one day … we won’t put him back on the streets.”

Mr Cameron is staying with Ms Yates in her Busselton home, but is seeking a space of his own.

If you can help, contact Ms Lister at manakaicafe@gmail.com or call on 9752 1285.