Volunteer Week: Volunteer for the homeless won’t quit, even at 92

The Seascape Garden resident has committed the last 20 years of his life to helping the community as a volunteer, offering relief assistance for homeless people and psychological help for those who suffer depression.

The ex-mining supervisor and pastor started helping the community after three teenagers vandalised his letterbox one night.

Woken up by the noise, he walked out of his home to find a scared teenager left behind by his mates who had been kicked out of his parent’s home.

He took him into his house for the night and gave him a bed and a meal. 

“The next morning I said to him ‘Where are you going to sleep tonight?’ and he said ‘I don't know’,” Mr Lambert said.

“He said ‘Probably down in the foreshore’.

“So, that night I said to my wife, ‘I think I'll go down there at midnight to see if I can find him and [see if] he is still there’; I went down there and found nine others.”

He hasn’t stopped since. 

Mr Lambert is a member of the Night Carers, a group of local men and women who cruise the streets every night from Falcon to the foreshore to hand blankets and a cup of coffee to homeless people.

“The Night Carers go out and they give blankets and a cup of coffee but they must talk to us because we want to find out where they are at, what's driven them out on the streets,” he said.

“Some of them are addicted to something and the conversation gets a bit short, but it's amazing that the next night we will go out there, they come out and want to talk to us.”

Mr Lambert has experienced five suicides from homeless individuals first-hand, which made him focus on the underlying cause for homelessness and substance abuse.  

“My theory is, right or wrong, that depression is the start of drinking, alcohol, drugs, whatever, smashing up cars, walking on the foreshore, sleeping on the foreshore, and sometimes losing their jobs,” he said.

“If you take time to talk to them you will find out that depression is the start of their downfall.”

Mr Lambert’s aim is to see all the agencies in Mandurah pulled together to assist homeless people.

He said he will continue with his task despite people’s concerns and he doesn’t plan to stop any time soon. 

“It won't be age, it will be the end of time for me,” he said.

“Whatever that is.”