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Chapter 1: What challenges did Anthony Tina face in his early life?
From homeless to now helping the homeless. This is an amazing story. Had a conversation with Anthony, who now works for LifeWise, but his life didn't have the best start. Born to a teenage mum, raised by his grandparents, shipped off overseas.
Where things really got pear-shaped was when I started intravenously use methamphetamine.
Anthony lost his way and he ended up being homeless on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney. He spoke about that journey, what it was like being homeless over there to ending up in prison.
They were getting searched and came in to another country to see their son in prison with no teeth. It was really sad at the time.
Moving back here, and as all 501s, they come back, they get put into a lodge, and they have very, very little support. And those that don't have any family, it's almost impossible. So luckily for Anthony, he did have that final support, and he rebuilt his life.
Didn't give a shit. Didn't pay bill.
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Chapter 2: How did addiction impact Anthony's journey to homelessness?
I didn't give a shit leading up to it. Now I do care. Do care about the society that we live in.
This story is proof that from the deepest pain can become your greatest purpose. So don't forget to like, comment, share and subscribe. This is a very important conversation. Anthony, enjoy.
Chapter 3: What was Anthony's experience like while homeless in Australia?
Unfiltered is produced by the team at Fanaticals and we are part of the Acast Network. Anthony, thank you so much for joining me, brother. Thank you for having me, David. Kia ora. Can you talk to us about, you know, where it all started for you? Where were you raised?
So I'm Ngāti Porou Te Arawa on my father's side. On my mum's side, I'm Samoan, Dutch and Danish. I was raised in Rotorua, born and raised. And my mum was 15 when she had me. So she was 16 when she gave birth to me. And she was in a relationship with my father. She was still at high school. Dad was just out of prison. He didn't treat her very nice. It was violent.
Both come from traumatic backgrounds. Mum eventually escaped with me and social services took me back to her parents on my Samoan side. And so I grew up there. And as it turned out, Mum was, she was given a choice. She said, look, do something with your life. You know, back in those days in the 70s, particularly with the Samoan background, she had caused a lot of shame. Fuck them up.
And so she said, as long as Anthony knows that I'm still his mother, I will do my best to, you know, I just, that's the deal. So you raise him because I'm too young. She got a job a year later, 16, 17, I think 18, moved out and then went to Australia. And I grew up with my grandparents who are actually my parents. Come about 11, 12, 13...
I knew there was something not quite right because it wasn't spoken of.
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Chapter 4: What was the turning point for Anthony during his time in prison?
I knew there was something. I wanted to know who I am. Why am I different? Why do I look different? I went to Limor School in Rotorua and it was very Pakeha. And I wasn't really, growing up in the 80s, You know, everything was white. Karate Kid, the Goonies, everything, pop culture was white. So I wanted to be white. But when I went to primary school, I wasn't. Bigger lips, eyes, skin was darker.
I remember hiding from the sun. I remember pushing my lips into the pillow. You know, things children do to fit in. So again, you can see already there was a detachment early on in my, like an attachment, detachment, and an identity sort of wanting to fit in. 12, 13, I met my father. How was that? Oh, that was interesting. So it was interesting because I begged my auntie.
I said, I've really got to make this man.
Chapter 5: How did Anthony rebuild his life after returning to New Zealand?
I've really got to know who this man is. I want to know who am I part of. And she set it up. Apparently he lived in Rotorua, not too far, actually a few suburbs away as it turned out. I had an idea of who I thought he would be. You know, as kids, I thought he'd be some sort of, I don't know, Clark Gable character, eh? Yeah. And we were in Decca, for those old enough to remember Decca.
Yeah, Decca. Who remembers Decca? You know Decca? Geez, we're showing our age, brother.
We are, right? And we were in Decca, and I sat there. My auntie was next to me, and this was the one-off. This was going to settle me down a little bit. And a man walked past. I'll never forget the hands. The hands walked past. There's a green swan dry. And on the hands were tattered – Hate and love on this hand. And he had a big moustache, a big bikey moustache.
And regardless, when I saw the man, I looked at him. He wasn't Clark Gable, but I knew this was my father and I was going to love this man. Fast forward, I got to selling his weed at high school. I was stealing things. And, you know, we often hear people use the once we're warriors. Often you hear it.
Chapter 6: What role does empathy play in addressing homelessness?
My dad was like, Jake, And I guess that's the only thing I could – so that gives some perspective. He reminded me of the Jake character. I think a lot of people can use that as an archetype. The turning point was my dad had given me a hiding because he thought I'd stolen something, which I hadn't. I love this man. I wouldn't have done it. Stolen from him. Yeah. I'd stolen something from him.
And I never forget that. I remember that hiding I got, the one and only. I remember that. And that hurt my heart and hurt my soul. And I wanted the ground to swallow me up, take me away from that. I left. I left that. I left that day broken, broken. My auntie gave me an opportunity.
She said, look, would you like to come to Australia some time out, get your mum over from England, and she can meet you sort of halfway, and you decide what you want to do. Long story short, mum came over, I went to Australia.
The moment I got off there as a 13-year-old child, you know, all those, you know, it smelt like Summer Bay, all those things that Sydney has, the allure, as most Kiwis know who might be watching this over there in Australia, kia ora. Yeah. But the pain was still there. And so I lived with my auntie. Long story short, I lived with my auntie for two years. And that wasn't always easy as well.
Very difficult. I know my auntie might be watching this one day, so I want to protect her because we've come a long way. But it was very, very difficult for a while for me.
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Chapter 7: How does Anthony's work with Lifewise help the homeless community?
What was going on? She would... she would punish me quite severely for not doing my schoolwork like it was quite a regime. So I kind of went from one to another thing. I went over and saw my mother in England two years in and then I eventually came back to New Zealand because I couldn't go and live in England as much as my mum wanted me to. It's too far away. So I came back to Aotearoa.
Needless to say, Already the seeds were there, trauma, displacement, I think, looking back now. And I'd always been a strange introverted. I know how to be extroverted, but I'm sort of a bit of both. And so I developed beautiful relationships with people over in Australia. I have some wonderful friends, some beautiful friends, some great relationships.
I also developed a lot of – so because I didn't understand how to keep a relationship. There's no surprises really. My template for trust is very, yeah, trust is very hard. And I'd find a way to sabotage it at some point.
It's interesting because you've got a similar background to myself, just sitting here, being shipped off to Australia, shipped off to Samoa, trying to find different places. When I was sent to Samoa, I thought it was a holiday until I got enrolled in school. But my family, again, my aunties, were trying to find a place, trying to look out for me, I guess.
But you definitely had that displacement and... Distrust, but really like that void inside, eh? There's like a, you know, you know something's missing. Yeah. And then that develops into chips on your shoulder. Yeah. You know, as you get older. Yeah. And we still haven't repaired, really fully repaired these relationships with my father.
It's an up and down rollercoaster of a thing, but I get that feeling that you talk about. Mine sort of came about a little bit later in my life in terms of falling down into the rock bottom. But how did you go from there? Where did it start going really wrong for you?
Oh, yeah. Where did it really go wrong for me is – interesting. I first started indulging in recreational drugs and – you know, ecstasy. It was the late 90s. It was Sydney rave culture. Coming into the early 2000s, I found that my reliance on this feel-good drug took a lot of that pain away, took a lot of... Hit it. And I felt like society had lied to me because...
You know, you heard about drugs being bad, bad, bad. Well, yeah. But in that moment, I was like, my God, I woke up, saw the sun, the birds, oh, this is great. And it kept chasing that feeling, chasing that. I was anaesthetising and using something. Obviously, amphetamines and speed or snorting speed and again. And in the Sydney scene, great, you know. But I was really lost. I didn't realise.
I knew I was lost, but... I was going to find my way. Why? Because I was the only one that ever found my own way as far as I knew at that time. Where things really got pear-shaped was when I started intravenously use methamphetamine. That's injecting. Correct. And that was around about 2004. Did you start by just smoking it? Yes, yes, like everybody.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Anthony offer to those experiencing homelessness or addiction?
I mean, I was just a danger to myself and anyone around me. I was just, I had just completely forgone my identity, my identity. And it's about rebuilding since coming back in 2019. I got straight, obviously, when I went into prison in 2019.
Was that the rock bottom, going to prison? What was your rock bottom?
My rock bottom? No, that wasn't my rock bottom, funnily enough. That really was sort of a salvation.
Prison?
In a way, which I'll get to shortly. Yeah, definitely. But my rock bottom, you know, I had beautiful friends. I have two very good friends in Melbourne and they looked after me incredibly. But they just couldn't sustain my madness. And I'd knock on. How mad were you? Oh, man, how mad was I? Well, I always thought I was nice. I was a nice person, but a nice dysfunctional person.
I could shoplift and get all sorts of things. Okay. So the madness was, for me, was the crimes that I, I guess, committed. Now, the first one... was the taking a bike to Kmart first thing in the morning and then I had to use a hammer to smash the cabinets to pull the mobile phones out. I thought that was going to be my end and it was.
But I knew that I had to do it first thing in the morning because I didn't want children and mums and prams. They didn't need to see that rubbish. So I had enough kind of common sense to know that no one had to see that. The second one which got me the time was when I went to a pharmacy and – And it took me ages to rob that pharmacy because I just didn't have enough courage.
I'd walk in, I'd walk out because my heart's like, I can't do this. This is not who I am. Finally, it was like the end of the night and I needed to not only pay my dealer but I needed to get more homeless. I was sleeping in her attic. She didn't know that. So I stole a knife and I put it in my pocket and I walked in just before the pharmacy closed and I said, I'm sorry. No, I asked for something.
She opened up the till. I opened up my pocket and showed her my knife and said, I'm not going to hurt you. I just need the money. I just need the money. That's rock bottom. rock bottom knowing, and I knew that, I always thought, how do people, how am I, what do they say when they go home? Like, what would she have said? She would have clearly been upset, cried to her husband, hugged her kids.
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