Subiaco Stories....A Story of Homelessness (1938).
Today there are stories about homelessness on social media and in newspapers everyday but homelessness was happening a 100 years ago in Subiaco to families....
The article is from Trove the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Daily News, 4 May 1938.
('Daily News' Staff Reporter)
Mr. R. P. Miller, Subiaco carrier, his 11-year-old twin daughters and his housekeeper, Mrs. Janet Walters, slept last night in a paddock at Subiaco. They were evicted from their home in York-street, Subiaco, yesterday.
Their furniture was piled high in the street outside the house. They were unable to find a suitable house to move into — so they slept in beds made up in the open paddock opposite the house. Mrs. Walters stated that she and her husband had looked after the twins since they were two years old. 'It would be cowardly for me to leave them now,' she said.
All the furniture is owned by Mrs. Walters. Misfortune has overtaken both the occupier of the house and the housekeeper before. Mr. Miller said that he had owned the house for more than 40 years. He raised a mortgage on it and it was under an order of the mortgagee that they were removed from , the house yesterday.
WIFE LEFT HIM
When the twins were only two, Miller said, he went to see his parents in an Eastern State. The day before he returned his wife left the house, leaving the young twins for him to care for. He advertised for someone to look after them Mr. and Mrs. Walters answered the advertisement and after that lived in premises at the rear of Miller's house while Mrs. Walters reared the children. In 1936 Walters was killed in a road accident on the Coolgardie-Kalgoorlie road. Mrs. Walters stayed on to keep house and look after the children for Miller. 'I have reared them, they are just like my own,' she said today. On Friday Miller was given notice by the mortgagee to leave the house by Monday. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday they searched further another suitable house without success. Only today they found the house they wanted.
MALLET USED ON DOOR
Before 9 o'clock yesterday morning a number of men arrived, accompanied by a policeman, and said that they had orders to move the furniture out of the house. 'They smashed in the back door with a wooden mallet when I told them they would have to wait until I finished the washing,' Mrs. Walters saw today. 'I had to fry the breakfast in the open this morning, and had to ask neighbors if 1 could go in and wash my hands,' said Mrs. Walters. 'I was afraid it was going to rain. Everything would have been ruined then,' was Miller's comment. Today the family intends to move into their new home. 
TOP: Furniture blocked the footpath in front of the Miller home when the in mates were turned out. CENTRE: The evicted household made up their beds in an open paddock where they spent the night. LOWER: Mrs. Walters and the two children — 'To leave them now would be cowardly'
