The hardest part about being a single father to twin girls who just turned six is that they want to wear different outfits.
“That’s where it’s a bit harder for me now,” says Orrey. “I used to dress them the same but now that they’re getting older they want to get dressed differently. They have their own personalities.”
The 29-year-old won full physical custody of his daughters two years ago. When they were four, officials from the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services knocked on his door and said they were removing the children from their mother and Orrey had a chance to have them if he got clean and had a clean criminal record.
“I said to them, ‘I’ll be honest with you, I am a little drunk right now, but come back tomorrow and that will change.’”
Orrey has not touched drugs or alcohol in more than two years, found housing and went to court to clear his criminal record after facing charges of car theft and domestic violence – all to win custody of his daughters.
But he still maintains the hardest part is their different outfits. “I don’t complain about it, but if that’s what they want then I’ll do that.”
Orrey has been coming to the Shed in Mount Druitt, a suburb in western Sydney that Australians awkwardly describe as “working class”, for most of his life. He likes to swing by to hang out with the coordinator, Rick Welsh, or his offsider, Dale.
The Shed looks very much as its name suggests. A simple, low-brick building with a large common area and a barbecue area out the back. Inside on a Wednesday afternoon, a woman sits at one of the computers in the corner, playing solitaire before approaching Rick. “Hey, brother,” she begins before asking him to call a woman from Mission Australia she would like to speak to.
Out the front sits an Aboriginal elder who doesn’t want to be identified. “I haven’t been in jail since 1978, it’s not relevant to me, but my five boys have,” he says. “Australia is the most racist country in the world.”
While he is talking about the mistakes the white man has made, dating back to 1788, another Aboriginal man – a professional in his 40s – is having a cigarette next to the campfire.
“The worst thing to happen to Aboriginal people is welfare,” he says. “I seen it happen in 1975 when we were given self-determination – which didn’t work – and welfare stuffed it up.
“We’ve been disrespected, we’ve been dispossessed, but the only people who are going to change that is yourself. I’ve been to jail, but I got out and got a job. I was the only person who could help me.”
The Shed is easily physically described but what it is is more complicated. Officially it is a men’s suicide prevention/drop-in centre with a focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men who have been in prison. But a lot of men don’t go there for counselling in the traditional sense, and they don’t go there because they are having suicidal thoughts.
Some go there because they are homeless and want a meal. Or they need some Legal Aid support. Or help with Centrelink forms. At the Shed men can find lawyers, Centrelink officers, parole officers, even a podiatrist. Some go there because they want a chat and they trust the men at The Shed. It also welcomes women.
The Shed partners with 28 organisations and has become an essential link between at-risk men and the services they can access but don’t know how to, or are not comfortable attempting to. A fundamental tenet is that it’s a place where Aboriginal men talk to Aboriginal men.
“Our main thing, what we are looking at, is a suicide prevention point to address the stuff that comes along,” Welsh says. “You might have someone with a legal problem but when you sit down and talk to them they’ll generally tell you other stuff – ‘Oh well, I’ve been drinking’, ‘I’ve been depressed’ – it’s generally all those things that’s wrapped around them.”
Welsh is leaning forward in his office, which has a steady stream of people through the door, looking for a phone charger, a certain form, or for Welsh himself. An affable man in his 40s, Welsh is not long out of hospital after losing more than 10kg when he contracted pneumonia. It doesn’t seem he has missed a beat at the Shed.
Of why the Shed is needed, he says: “It’s about people getting to a state of despair where they feel no value, maybe not in their children’s lives, they’re homeless, there’s nowhere for them to really go so they get to a state of despair.”
There are no grand statements from the men gathered at the Shed for its weekly Wednesday lunch, where fish, kangaroo burgers and potato salad are served. Nobody says, “The Shed saved my life.” People who would make those type of sweeping remarks do not frequent the place. These are men who are quiet in front of strangers; wary men, weary men.
It took Shannon, 50, years before he was able to talk to other men about how he was feeling. He says he has spent half of his life in jail, charged with murder when he was a teenager and ending up back in prison multiple times after being released.
“In and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, then I did one big spread and then I thought, ‘Bugger this, I’m pulling the plug,’” he says.
“It was my support network I had [that helped], my family, the Shed here, I come back a lot … I talk with Rick, I’ve got a sort of welfare worker ... I talk to him a lot, if I’ve got any issues, things dragging me down, I go and have a yarn, he lifts me up, a good brother.”
Shannon says “gubba” (white people) make him uncomfortable; it has been easier to connect with his parole officer and with Rick because they are also Aboriginal. The hardest time he has had since getting out of jail was immediately after his release.
“Being in there I see people come and go – day in, day out, week in, week out – they come back. I’d have to say when I first got out after seven years, I couldn’t adapt to outside society, I knew the inside society. It’s a freaky world. I just couldn’t adjust straight away.”
Welsh says he can usually pick the people coming to the Shed who have just finished a long stint in prison. “They will stand there and fold tea towels and stuff like that. When you’re in there you got to fold, do stuff, make the bed, so when they’re here and do that you can pick they’ve just come out of doing a long stint.”
Shannon’s sister played a key role in his recovery – he used to call her from jail when he felt he was going to get into some “trouble” and she would calm him down – but he also credits his parole officers and the Shed. He says it helped him stay away from alcohol and hard drugs, being able to come in and “have a yarn”, access services and get a feed.
Paul, 37, spent a few days in jail a couple of months ago and “didn’t want to find out too much more” about it. He has finally been housed, which he calls a big deal after couchsurfing, staying with friends and even sleeping in a garden shed. Now he can concentrate on getting a job.
“I got told about the Shed about five years ago … I keep coming back because of the understanding,” he says. “You tell the same story over and over again and here you get people that listen. Through the Shed and Catholic Care there were a lot of people that listened.”
Asked what his life would be like if he hadn’t found the Shed, Paul lowers his eyes and stares at the floor for about 30 seconds, before finally whispering: “My life would be different.”
