SBS Is Sending Wealthy Australians To Live On The Streets In ‘Filthy Rich And Homeless’

SBS has announced an upcoming show and, from the looks of the trailer, it’s going to be the source of a whole lot of heated conversations next month! Filthy Rich and Homeless will see “five wealthy Australians swap privilege for homelessness”. The three-part documentary series (which has been adapted from a version in the UK) will follow the participants as they spend ten days experiencing life on the streets of Melbourne.

Participants include the likes of “model and Sydney socialite” Christian Wikins’ who proves particularly galling in this first look. “Money can’t buy happiness,” he says with a disturbing beginning to creep over his face. “But it can buy champagne. And that’s pretty close.” With exceptionally David Attenborough-doco vibes, the clip then cuts to him struggling sleeping rough.

The self-described “social experiment” seeks to address the crisis of homelessness in Australia. The five “filthy rich” volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds and bring their own unique biases. Seeing them confront these through personal experience might actually change the minds of people who share their opinions. The show also features interviews with homeless people about their lived experience.

As always, there’s the question of why we need to send outsiders — particularly outsiders with potentially harmful opinions — into these situations in order to empathise with people’s situations. Spending ten days on the streets of Melbourne, knowing that you will be going back to your normal life at the end of it, obviously puts someone in an entirely different headspace from those who live this everyday.

We’ll have to wait until next month to see how it pans out! Filthy Rich and Homeless could either be a well-rounded look at the realities of homelessness in modern Australia, or a problematic version of Survivor: Melbourne’s Streets. Let’s hope for the former.

–

Filthy Rich Homeless will air over three nights on SBS from June 27.