'Don't tell me being homeless is stunt television. That's an insult'

SKYE Leckie’s turn spending 10 days homeless in Sydney hasn’t even hit TV screens and already the critics are taking pot-shots.

But the straight-talking socialite and charity queen has no time for those who say SBS documentary series Filthy Rich & Homeless is “poverty porn” - stunt television which spotlights the issue of homelessness before its privileged participants head back to their cushy lives and forget about it.

“They didn’t do it. It’s my experience. I did it. Turn me off if you don’t want to watch it,” Leckie bristles.

“Those who say it’s stunt TV are being totally ignorant to the homeless situation out there.

“Don’t tell me that being homeless is stunt television. If you didn’t have to be homeless, you wouldn’t be there. Because you wouldn’t swap places with anyone to be there, I can tell you.

“Calling it stunt TV is an insult to the people that have to be living on the street. They (the haters) should take a long hard look at what they say before they speak.”

Leckie is one of five “privileged” Australians — the others are actor, singer and model Alli Simpson, writer Benjamin Law, actor and broadcaster Cameron Daddo, and politician Alex Greenwich — to exit normal life to experienced the sad reality of the 116,000 homeless people in Australia for the second series of Filthy Rich & Homeless.

Leckie, a shining light Sydney society circles is a former public relations guru for companies including Tiffany and David Jones, and the wife of former Channel 7 boss and TV industry heavy-hitter David Leckie.

She was courted by TV producers a couple of years ago to join the Sydney version of The Real Housewives of Sydney, the international reality show franchise which showcases the glamorous lives of rich women, in often hilariously trainwreck fashion.

“They thought I’d be good for it, I didn’t think I would, so I didn’t do it,” says Leckie.

Instead, Leckie has chosen a far more sobering dose of reality — 10 days in various kinds of homeless accommodation in an experience she says was as real as it could get.

From the time she was collected for the first day of filming, it was obvious this was far more real than she could ever have imagined.

‘IT FELT TOTALLY DEGRADING’

When the TV crew filming her turned their backs and refused to answer her questions, Leckie knew she was truly alone on Sydney’s streets.

Dumped to spend the night in a Parramatta park, Leckie spent her first night careering between tears, fear, anger, desperation and frustration.

She had no water, no bottle to put any in if she could find a running tap, and no money to buy one.

When she needed the toilet, she battled to find one unlocked.

No watch. No cash. No ID. No phone. Nobody to ask for help.

“I’m short-sighted. I can’t see distances and I had no glasses,” she says.

“I asked producers ‘why can’t I have them? they said ‘well if you were a domestic violence victim running out of a house because you’re afraid you’re going to be killed, you’re hardly going to stop and grab your glasses, are you’.”

There was no mollycoddling the talent.

“The crew ignored me. I’d ask a question — and nobody told me this was how it was going to be — they would turn away.

“I woke up in Parramatta and said to them ‘what do I do now?’ and they turned their backs on me and walked away.

“And that’s what happens to the homeless. Nobody talks to them. It felt totally degrading.”

She was unprepared for the loneliness.

“I just felt so desperately lonely that first night. I wasn’t prepared for that. And I’m a control freak. I know what I’m doing every hour.

“When you’re homeless, you get up … you get up to do what?

“It’s not like there’s eggs and bacon. You getting up to go and do degrading things like sit near an escalator at a train station and beg for something so you can at least put something in your stomach.”

Unsurprisingly, the experience changed Leckie irrevocably.

“I went into the experience out of choice. The people I met don’t have a choice as to why they end up on the street,” she said.

“For a long time we have all turned a blind eye to it and if this series can in any way shine a light on the plight of what is happening in this fantastic country of ours, then I want to be a part of something like that.”

Yes, she says, she was naive to the seriousness of the issue going in.

“I’ve done a lot of charity things in my life focusing on children and cancer but never homelessness — for no reason other than it never came my way. I selfishly almost ignored it,” she said. “I’d see people in the street — and most people are self-centred, you’re busy and you’re running to a meeting — and did I stop and think ‘gosh — where have you come from? Why are you sitting here? What’s your life history that you end up here?’ No, I didn’t.”

SOLVING IT

One of Leckie’s few victories came as she fled Parramatta for the more familiar surrounds of Sydney’s CBD. It gave her a bit of control back.

“Up until then I’d been pathetic. Just crying,” she says.

“And then I got some money and it felt good to know I still had that resilience to fight back.”

She made the money begging at Circular Quay. She was robbed of it at Woolloomooloo.

It was a stark and scary reminder of how easily being homeless can quickly extinguish resilience.

“The people down there are still there doing what they are doing every day. And I think about that a lot,” Leckie says.

“I know since the show I’ve become less selfish. And things that used to irritate me I’m now like ‘forget that, move on’. I’m a little bit wiser and a little bit more compassionate to the plight of so many people.”

She knows some will smugly say the show changes nothing as participants go back to their lives. After all, she’s rich, why doesn’t she help them?

“People say ‘10 days, then she goes back to her life’. Well, it’s my experience. And I’ll carry that with me,” she says.

“I can’t scoop everyone up and say ‘come on, I’m going to make it better’,” she says.

“The problem has been Band-aided for so long, and it’s so vast. It requires education and a huge support system to even start addressing it.

“It’s all very well to ‘get more housing’, but they need support to assimilate back into life — and you can’t do that on your own.”

“There’s no easy answer, because homelessness comes in so many different forms.

“It’s not just the old guy pushing the shopping trolley.

“I lived with a family who have a roof over their head, but they’re still homeless, because it’s not her home. She’s at the behest of the Housing department as to whether she stays or goes.

“It’s not a privilege to have a house. It’s a right. Everyone should have a house.”

Filthy Rich & Homeless begins Tuesday, August 14 on SBS. It will broadcast across three successive nights, culminating in a live special at 9.30pm on Thursday, August 16.

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