There exists, still, a stigma around homelessness and yet, as rents rise along with home prices, it is becoming less feasible for low-income earners and older women to find stable homes. The recent floods in New South Wales have left individuals and families without homes for weeks, and sometimes months.
There is no single face of homelessness, and no singular experience of it. It is the teenager sleeping on friends’ couches because their own home is unsafe, or the woman fleeing a violent relationship and living in temporary housing with no idea how she’ll afford her own rental, or the elderly, chronically ill couple who have been given notice to vacate their rental home and cannot stretch their savings to the current rental market.
To our national shame, it is the women victims of male violence who are overwhelmingly afflicted by homelessness. Women make up more than two thirds of all people seeking homelessness support, but unable to receive any, according to 2020 data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. As the Australian Human Rights Commission warns, “We need to work towards eliminating the reasons why people become homeless in the first place…”
Women aged 50 and over are the most at risk in a market lacking affordable housing. As Kobi Maglen of HAAG national older persons homelessness prevention , “This is an unfolding crisis compounded by the economic, social and health impacts of Covid-19. It also highlights the critical link between safe, secure and affordable housing and good health and wellbeing, particularly in older age.”
Catherine Hill’s debut film encapsulates the 20 years of people, stories and social changes she’s witnessed as a case manager and crisis worker with homeless men and women. Partially self-funded, Hill’s Some Happy Day is a passion project which she wrote, directed and co-produced. She has assembled a cast of both emerging talent and instantly recognisable talent, such as lead actress Peta Brady.
Brady (who memorably starred in classic Australian dramas Neighbours and Blue Heelers) is Tina, who spends her days in the bayside suburb of St Kilda, scrounging for coins in the payphone slots or seeking safe places to sleep. Her face, so familiar from those family dramas of two decades ago, is disarming.
What happened to her? What choices did she make, what circumstances befell her? These are the questions social worker, Frances (Mary Helen Sassman of US drama The Leftovers), is tasked with determining. Frances is entangled in her own messy web, seeking temporary highs in stealing items she has no need for, hoping it gives her distraction from the anxiety of her family problems and emotionally exhausting work.
Hill’s characters are like us, and the people we know and bump into in the course of our everyday lives: ordinary, flawed, funny, vulnerable. 
Hill joined me via Zoom to discuss the film. This is an edited version of our conversation.
Catherine Hill. Source: Supplied
Tell me about Tina. Is she based on one person you met in your 20 years as a case manager, or an amalgam of people and their experiences?
She was an amalgamation. I met so many women over the years and one thing that struck me was the fact that they all had this hope for a better life, and they all had this extraordinary humanity outside of the trauma that they’d come from. They showed such incredible kindness and compassion. Those who are street homeless often struggle to engage with services due to trauma, often childhood trauma.
Frances has her own problems. Why was it important to depict a woman in the role of support and help who is not on top of her own life?
Frances was inspired by one of the first social workers I worked with, an extraordinary woman who had the capacity to provide advice and to help the street homeless out of significant crisis. The moment they’d walk out, her life was falling apart, and I found that dichotomy so interesting. She defined herself through her skill to help others but couldn’t bring the same forensic quality to her own life.
In setting this film in St Kilda, were you very familiar with the long history of addiction, homelessness and violence that is still so prevalent there?
I moved into Fitzroy Street in 1993. I moved in next door to a rooming house and there were far more rooming houses back then. My interest and curiosity in my neighbours took me to Sacred Heart Mission to volunteer in my community, and that was such an eye opener. What I’ve been aware of, as a St Kilda resident, is the growth in homelessness and the risk for women of being assaulted.
Peta Brady is such a familiar face for those of us who grew up watching Neighbours and Blue Heelers. Did you know her prior to casting her for this film, and what did she bring to the role?
I wrote the role for Peta. I’ve known her for over 20 years and we’d worked together at the Crisis Centre. I’d also worked with her as an actor and a dramaturg. Peta’s an amazing writer who has written very successful plays. As I was writing this script, Peta was checking it, giving me feedback, and she also helped in the casting. It was so much about the chemistry between characters. She was integral to this film. She had the capacity to bring the humanity to Tina because she’s working constantly with the same client group, she listens to their stories, she has enormous respect for them.
Frances and Tina establish a relationship as women, as humans, as friends. How true was this to your own experience of working with women, especially in homelessness?
Super true. I’ve case managed the same women sometimes, they’ll come in and move out and come back. I tell them to never give up, that returning is a testament to their resilience. As a case manager, you’re sharing meals and having a coffee with the women in your care. In the movie, it is a point in time when Tina has met someone who tells her she can study, who can suggest a relationship might not be healthy for her. Suddenly, she’s got someone she feels is on her side and wants the best for her.
Do you have plans to make more films? Do you feel more confident that you have a voice and a place in the film industry now, as a bona fide filmmaker?
Yes. I’ve been blessed to meet the people I have and it’s been really lovely. We are wanting to do art for social impact so at the moment, I’m working with independent producer Cecilia Low – who co-produced Some Happy Day – and we’re looking at projects for next year. My naivete got me here but now I want to move forward and work on female-centred stories.
August 1–7 is Homelessness Week in Australia. This year, the theme is: To end homelessness we need a plan. Visit the Homelessness Australia for more information and how to help.
Some Happy Day is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
