Where to next? Navigating the road to housing stability for older women
Where to next? Navigating the road to housing stability for older women
For Linda, living in Melbourne’s desirable suburb of Brighton, it came out of the blue.
“Homelessness was not even on my radar. I had never ever considered that I would be homeless. Then one day my partner said, “We don’t have any money left.” The removalists came and basically took everything,” she recalls.
Linda is one of 10 women over 55 whose story filmmaker Sue Thomson followed over the course of two and a half years while making the documentary, UNDER COVER.
In preparation for our Older Women’s Housing panel discussion in November 2022, Sue spoke to Renee Martin, Sefa’s Head of Engagement about why she decided to make the documentary.
“I saw a program on SBS about a group of women who had had ordinary lives, worked really hard in the community, and ended up in housing crisis. As a woman over 55, I didn’t know about this issue – and it was enough impetus for me to decide to embark on making a film about this,” Sue said.
In fact, Sue is part of the cohort of women in Australia who could become vulnerable quite easily - having worked hard in the arts her whole life while raising children and caring for ageing parents, she doesn’t have much super.
Australia’s older women’s housing crisis
The reality is, single, ‘middle aged’ (between 45 and 55 years) women in Australia are the fastest-growing group of people at risk of housing insecurity and homelessness.[1] Currently, 500,000 women over 65 are also experiencing long-term income poverty that puts them at risk of housing insecurity. [2]
And when we look at the facts, it’s not surprising.
With Australia’s gender pay gap still at 13.3%, women take home over $240 less than men per week. This means, based on average full-time incomes, it would take an additional 10 months for women to save for a 20% deposit than men. And when you take into account that women are more likely to work in lower paid industries than men, the real gap we’re looking at is closer to 30%.
Women are also more likely to be employed part-time, accounting for 67.2% of such roles in Australia. Often this is to allow them to fulfil care giving roles – caring for children and/or ageing parents.
Lower financial literacy, unrealistic requirements from lenders and exposure to family and domestic violence also create additional barriers to owning a home for women. This means, in a nation obsessed with home ownership, they must overcome tremendous hurdles to find stable, safe and affordable housing.
Taking the first steps
There are many organisations and individuals in Australia determined to address this issue head on.
At Sefa, we dove deep into the issue to explore new housing models that align with what women need and want. Our report commissioned by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation (LMCF) identified potential models that have best chance of preventing homelessness for middle aged women.
In February 2023 the Federal Government introduced the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. The $10 billion fund promises to build 30,000 new social and affordable homes in its first five years. This includes 4,000 homes for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence or older women at risk of homelessness. It will also dedicate $100 million to establishing crisis and transitional housing options for these cohorts. This builds on work happening at the State and Territory levels.
While these initiatives and plans are a good start, as Sue puts it, the issue can’t be solved by siloed approaches. She spent more than two years of her life making a documentary to shine the light on this group of invisible women.
“I naively went into this thinking I could change the world and have 5,000 social houses built at the end of this film,” Sue said. “But it’s so much bigger than that. We need to talk about how we can stop this happening.”
We need to keep the momentum going
As the infographic shows, the impact of extreme housing stress can have life-long effects. People experiencing homelessness are over-represented in many health statistics, including emergency department presentations, hospitalisation, and psychiatric care. But when it comes to preventative health check-ups, the opposite is true, contributing to an increased risk of late diagnosis of health problems; poorer control of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes; and greater hospitalisation for preventable conditions[3].
Having enough housing with safe, secure tenure is essential to reducing the impact of the ongoing housing crisis for women – and creating a foundation for healthy, productive lives for over half our population.
And while we welcome government commitment to increase affordable housing supply, the conversation has been too focused on the bricks and mortar – rather than the people at the heart of the issue. We believe we need to do more to shine the light on this invisible group who so often fall through the cracks.
And we’re not alone. Forward thinking, like-minded organisations are investing in helping us explore new financing solutions that will unlock public and private funding for fit-for-purpose housing for these women. While in its early stages, our research will investigate how offering targeted wraparound services alongside secure and affordable housing positively impacts women’s quality of life and is a cost-effective approach.
We know that with the right resources and the right partners, we can create a better future for Australians. Are you with us?
Want to be part of the discovery phase of this exciting new research?
We welcome any thoughts, ideas and insights you can bring to the table. We welcome collaboration. Please drop us a line at info@sefa.com.au.
[1] Boucher, D., 2021, ‘Female and Homeless: Australia’s Growing Housing Crisis’, The Urban Developer
[2] Older Women’s Network, Older women in Australia: Housing insecurity and homelessness, 2020
[3] AHURI What are the real costs of Australia’s housing crisis for women? 8 March 2023