The Story of Rough Edges

Before there was Rough Edges there was PJ’s:

In 1987, Peter Hewitt (an Outreach Worker of St John’s Anglican Church and St Peter’s Anglican Church, Darlinghurst) and a team of volunteers, under the guidance of St John’s Anglican Minister John McKnight, opened PJ’s café in the basement of St Peters church hall, in Darlinghurst. PJ’s opened in 1987. PJ’s was no ordinary coffee shop, it was “for people not profits”, helping the community of Kings Cross who were living with complex social and mental health issues. Many had gender identity issues, combined with drug and alcohol problems, were homeless or threat of homelessness.

Sadly, in 1992, it was decided that there would be one church in the Darlinghurst area and this would mean that St Peter’s would be closed. Eventually, on the 23^rd of July 1994, PJ’s was also closed, as the site was sold to SCEGG’S School. And so, the search began to find a new site for the street ministry that PJ’s had formed.

Searching for a new site:

St John’s Anglican Church Ministers Bill Lawton and Tom Henderson-Brooks and the last PJ’s manager John Lindsay, were key figures in the hunt for the new site. However, at the time no one was really interested in providing a place for the marginalized to exist.

Finally, after extensive unsuccessful searching the staff of St John’s realised that they could convert and renovate some of their existing property. So they decided that they would open the parish hall basement onto Victoria Street and structure the under stage area as the venue for this street ministry.

This would not be PJ’s but it would be a new venue later to be known as, Rough Edges. The people would learn something of their value in God’s eyes by the quality of the furnishings and equipment and by the respectful way in which they were treated. Hence, clients would be called “patrons and many of the furnishings later placed in Rough Edges were hand made by the first volunteers involved. Some of these furnishings are still apart of Rough Edges today.

Rough Edges opens:

An important part of the making of Rough Edges was Streetwize. This was the brainchild of Tom Henderson-Brooks. It was out of the Streetwize congregation where most of the first volunteers of Rough Edges came from.

Rough Edges finally opened its doors to the public in 1996. Rough Edges was only open during this period at night. Many of the first volunteers were from the St John’s congregation and the street community. The mission statement and ethos of Rough Edges was developed by the people involved during this time, at the first training course held for volunteers.

The first manager of Rough Edges was John Stanley. Laurie Besant took over as manager in 2001 after John Stanley left to work in the United States of America. Laurie Besant resigned in 2009 and currently Rough Edges doesn’t have a manager due mainly to funding for this position no longer available.

One of the earliest challenges faced at Rough Edges was related to violence. There was a strong ethos of non violence and patrons were encouraged to work towards reconciliation and forgiveness with accountability. This was very different from what many were experiencing on the streets or had experienced in their early family and later personal relationships. However, with time Rough Edges has become greatly valued by patrons as a safe place and the practice of non violence is now fiercely upheld by the patrons themselves.

The need to provide more services to patrons:

Originally, the St John’s secretary administered food and prescription vouchers to those in need through the office window until it became clear that this was time consuming. So, it was decided that a welfare worker would be employed and that they would administer welfare assistance out of the other office window. It was then decided that this method lacked dignity for the “clients” and the community assistance program was moved to Rough Edges in 2002.

This new day time program was later called the Community Assistance and Partnership Program (CAPP) and was coordinated by Jane French from 2002 till 2008. It is still called CAPP today and is now coordinated by Wayne Palmer, who took over from Jane French at the start of 2009.

After much trial and error the patrons were offered 40 minute appointments for counselling, financial and practical assistance and those waiting for their appointment could enjoy the Rough Edges café. Hence, clients could have a coffee, something to eat and have a chat with the Rough Edges volunteers while they waited. Quite often people would come just to be a part of the café rather than wanting an appointment with one of the trained welfare workers.

Partnership with Anglicare:

In 2006, Rough Edges was approached by Anglicare Bondi Beach with a suggestion that the two enter a partnership that enabled Anglicare to administer its emergency relief funds to people living in the inner city. As, they no longer were able to practice out of St Michael’s in Surry Hills.

After much prayer and discussion it was decided that Rough Edges would no longer supply emergency relief, except in unusual contexts, as Anglicare would now provide this. With the aim of allowing Rough Edges workers to concentrate on offering casework, generalist counselling and emergency to sustainability counselling, while volunteers continued to provide hospitality and a listening ear to those visiting.

Rough Edges today:

Rough Edges is open two days and four nights per week and is visited by over 100 disadvantaged, homeless and people at risk of homelessness per week. Hospitality and listening to patrons share their stories is still at the core of Rough Edges.

The Rough Edges night program relies on donations of food from Ozharvest and local restaurant Govinda’s, in Darlinghurst. The aim of the night program is to offer a safe comfortable lounge room feel environment where patrons can spend time. Hence, patrons can have something to eat and drink, watch TV, read newspapers and play games.

CAPP has been able to expand and offer more to the Rough Edges patrons as a response to the partnership with Anglicare. Workers and volunteers are able to build long term relationships with patrons and offer more community development programs. Specifically, Milk Crate Theatre and Rough Edges have been able to form a partnership, where professional actors from Milk Crate Theatre come and run acting classes with patrons with the goal of putting a play on at Edward Eager Lodge at the end of each series of classes. Milk Crate does this type of outreach with Rough Edges once a year.

This is just a short sketch of Rough Edges history. There are countless stories of celebrations, losses, disasters, failures and glories that are told and remembered in other contexts. Over all though it should be noted at the end of this short history that hundreds of lives have been touched and changed at Rough Edges and for this we give thanks to those that have gone before us – the people of vision and determination who were the founders, all of our amazing volunteers who have worked so hard and served so courageously over the years, the street community of Kings Cross/ Darlinghurst who have welcomed us with openness and generosity of spirit and humbly taught us so much. All of these have made possible the wonders of grace with which God has continued to bless all of us who come here, with our many rough edges.

This history was adapted from an article written by Jane French (2008).