Deep in the middle of Amos at church, the subjects of mercy, justice and care for the vulnerable have come up at church. So it was a good opportunity to interview a member of the 9 am congregation, Ian Hammond, who is the chair of Mission Australia, a national non-denominational Christian charity that seeks to bring hope and possibility to all.
Caroline Andrews, a minister at St James Anglican, Croydon, interviewed Ian.
Caroline: One of the things we’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks is looking at the book of Amos as we hear about God’s judgement on Israel, and particularly for their failure to respond to mercy and justice, to be people who care for the poor and the vulnerable and those in need.
Ian Hammond is involved in a Christian charity called Mission Australia. It’s one of the largest community service and housing charities in Australia. And Ian is the chair of the Mission Australia board, that’s a volunteer position and his heart and soul and hard work goes into that. And so I thought this morning we’d have an opportunity to hear a bit more about that. So Ian, can you tell us first of all a little bit about what Mission Australia does?
Ian: Mission Australia started off about 165 years ago in Sydney and Brisbane. Christians got together and said ‘We’re not doing enough to minister to and support some of the most disadvantaged people in those cities’, and Mission Australia has grown since then. Last year, Mission Australia supported 160,520 people through 477 services and 4,550 social and affordable homes, thanks to the work of 2,590 staff and 1,113 volunteers. We’re in more than 120 regions throughout Australia and have over 230 offices.
I meet staff and the people Mission Australia serves right across the country – from Dubbo and Broken Hill in NSW, to Mornington Island up in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, through the Northern Territory to Meekatharra in the Western Desert and down in Tasmania, all around Australia. So, we’re a very big charity.
We have many homelessness services, with many early intervention programs aimed at stopping homelessness before it starts and keeping families together when it’s safe to do so. We do a lot of domestic violence work, drug and alcohol support, we work with young people and older people facing tough times as well. We also have pre-employment supports and disability services, including work with the NDIS.
We also have social and affordable housing and right now we’re growing our social housing footprint, so more people have safe, secure homes. We currently have more than 5,000 social and affordable homes around Australia and we have a target to get to 10,000 in the next five years, which is one of Mission Australia’s biggest goals.
[In the Inner west of Sydney] around here you may not be aware Mission Australia isn’t just in remote places but started off in the city – for example, In Five Dock we have a facility for men who have come out withdrawal programs [withdrawing from addiction] who live there for a couple of years at a time. We have a facility in Drummoyne with no signage, for women escaping domestic violence. We also have Yaralla Cottages, which is for single women in Sydney, aged 35 years and over who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. We have an office in Ashfield with about 30 staff. We are also involved in mental health programs in Campsie. We have our Common Ground building in Camperdown where we provide social and affordable housing with services available for residents. We also have a place in Greenacre, not far away, which is for teens who are homeless and have nowhere else to go.
Caroline: That sounds incredible. Ian, why is it important for you to be involved in this ministry and invest in it?
Ian: Mission Australia’s founding purpose, [about] which I have strong convictions, is inspired by Jesus Christ. Mission, Australia meets human need to spread the knowledge of the love of God.
We’re a Christian organisation.
We do it out of a sense of Christian commitment as an outworking of our relationship with God: in Micah 6:8, “Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” And in Amos, there’s a great verse, 5:24, about righteousness and justice.
I guess I’ve held those convictions quite some time. Every now and then God really convicts me about something. In Mission Australia that it’s been really helpful.
For example, we have more than 160 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff who work for Mission Australia.
I often visit remote locations, such as Alice Springs. A few times, God’s really spoken to me through that. I remember the first time I went into an art gallery in Alice Springs. I was admiring a painting, and the manager of the art gallery said, “See that? That painting was painted by one of the last Aboriginal families to walk out of the desert, having never seen a white person, and see the man sitting over there on the lounge, he was the man who met them in the desert.” I have that painting in our lounge room.
I am totally always convicted that First Nations issues aren’t just part of Australia’s colonial past, they’re part of our present. The injustices that have happened in my lifetime, and that continue to affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today, are undeniable.
That family that walked out the desert seeing a white person for the first time, was in 1983. I sat down with a young Aboriginal woman in one of our facilities, who was in her early twenties, told me their story growing up, some remote place between the border in New South Wales and Queensland with a mother that not working out, moving to Alice Springs, to being near Alice Springs, and being with a father that didn’t work out there. She’s in a hostel working three days in a cafe. You see that vulnerability and that need in a place like Alice Springs. And after we spoke, later on I walked out of that facility and she bumped into me again and she said, “Thank you. I thought you really listened to me.”
Caroline: Thanks, Ian. The needs feel immense and burdensome. How do you see God in these places? Can you tell us a couple of stories about how you see God working recently?
Ian: Every now and then, when God gives me something small or something big, which really encourages me in the work.
Building more social housing is very important to us. A recent example we were really struggling with was a big project in Toowoomba. A 180-unit development for social housing. We couldn’t quite get the economics to work and were almost at the end of our tether when God answered our prayers, because he provided an unexpected means to make it happen. So, that was a real conviction for us.
About a year ago, we opened the first stage of Midtown MacPark which is a vibrant new community in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Park. It’s an amazing place that includes social, affordable and market-rate housing. It’s a big deal! We’re really excited to be part of such a wonderful community. We manage the social and affordable housing and provide support, while our community development team run a variety of programs.
A lot of the people who come to live in social housing come from a lot of trauma and challenges. So, we have Mission Australia support workers on the ground. And we have a Community Chaplain there who’s a wonderful lady – she’s a friendly and supportive presence who helps to nurture connection between residents. But what is exciting for me, is the Christian churches in that area that have a committee and they got behind us and they backed us and a dozen churches are helping us run events. Once a fortnight, one of the churches is running a Bible study, and it’s just great to see God bringing all the Christians together to work on that site there.
Image: Mission Australia’s Common Ground in Camperdown, Inner West Sydney.