Ned’s story: keep it moving

Painted across the back wall of the Melbourne City Mission (MCM) Youth Foyer garage is a phrase suggested by renter Ned: Keep it moving.

For Ned, it’s not just a mural theme: “If you don’t move, your emotions build up,” he says. “And if your emotions are deregulated, you’re unpleasant to be around.”

It’s a straightforward way of putting something he clearly thinks about a lot: keep learning, and keep moving forward in life.

Ned, 23, has been living at the MCM Youth Foyer in Richmond for around a year and a half. Before that, he experienced homelessness and rough sleeping. He doesn’t dwell on it during our conversation, but he does speak about the perspective it gave him.

“It gives you appreciation for the little things in life,” he says. “It connects you to the struggles that a lot of Australians face.”

The MCM Youth Foyer provides young people experiencing homelessness with up to three years of accommodation, alongside support to access education, training and employment. Renters work with a Youth Development Coach to build independent living skills and transition into longer-term housing. That stability of housing matters but, as Ned points out, it’s not the whole picture.

“Putting someone in a room… there’s actually a lot of things that go into being able to stay in the room,” he says.

At the foyer, those things include routine, support and, importantly, other people. When I visit, the entrance is busy: racks of clothes, a communal kitchen, flyers for programs and events, people coming and going. It feels like a welcoming and vibrant space, and importantly, homey.

Ned is an aspiring scholar who spends much of his time learning. He’s studying social sciences and hopes to become a psychiatrist. Having a home at the Foyer has given him the stability he needs to focus on his studies.

“I’m just keeping myself up to code,” he says. “There’s a lot of studies that say maintaining a good lifestyle increases your happiness.”

He’s also, by his own definition, someone who likes to learn things for their own sake. When I describe him as an autodidact, he stops me.

“How do you spell that?” he asks. He writes it down. He collects words, he explains. The mural project gave Ned another way to learn, and contribute.

Funded by Yarra City Council, MCM partnered with artists Seth and Daniel from It Stands Out to run a series of workshops with renters. Over two weeks, young people developed ideas, experimented with techniques and worked toward a final design.

The mural now stretches across the back of the foyer garage. Collectively, the renters developed 3 canvases mounted on each of the Foyer’s floors. Each a different landscape that renters can contribute to over time.

“It’s a visual representation of them within their space,” Seth (It Stands Out) explains. “It reinforces their connection to the place.”

Ned was part of shaping the canvases and mural, including one of its most recognisable elements.

“There’s a commonwealth symbol on there,” he tells me. “That was mine.” Gough Whitlam – who introduced sweeping social reforms in Australia – is one of his idols.

For Ned the theme Keep it moving is also an important element. It’s tied to how he approaches things more broadly, including how he measures progress.

“If I ever feel like I’m comparing myself to someone, I remember that everybody has different circumstances,” he says.

Looking ahead, Ned has big goals: be accepted into a reputable psychiatry course, graduate with a good GPA. But he’s not so focused on the end goal, more the journey.

When I ask what advice he’d give to another young person experiencing housing insecurity, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Tough times don’t last,” he says. “Only tough people last.”

For Ned, that toughness comes from letting his values guide him and using them as a compass to keep moving forward.