Homeless older women - a growing demographic

"The gender gap in retirement savings and retirement incomes is a consequence of events across a woman’s lifecycle. It stems from deep and systemic gender inequality – ingrained attitudes towards gender roles and caring; women’s vulnerability to violence; the gender pay gap; constrained choices and decisions about paid work and care; the impact of divorce; discrimination and harassment. Each of these experiences affects subsequent opportunities and finally leads to women accumulating poverty instead of financial security."  

S Cerise, K O’Connell, E Rosenman & PS Chandran 2009, "Accumulating poverty? Women’s experiences of inequality over the lifecycle. An issues paper examining the gender gap in retirement savings, Australian Human Rights Commission", Sydney, p27. 

In August 2013 for Homeless Persons' Week, Pro Bono Australia reported: "More than 105,000 people in Australia experience homelessness on any given night, and just six per cent of them are sleeping rough. Others are in specialist homelessness services, boarding houses, hotels or motels, or sleeping on the floor or the couch at someone else’s place." Upwards of 44% of those homeless people are likely to be women. On Census night in 2006, the ABS reported that 46,058 females identified themselves as homeless, and that "While more males were counted as homeless on the 2006 Census night, more women than men are supported by specialist homelessness services each year." However, Sue Cripps, the chief executive of Homelessness NSW, said in an ABC report in 2010 that the number of homeless women in Australia was severely underestimated because "women are hidden, they don't sleep rough at night because of the dangers and boarding houses are largely unsafe for women."

Domestic violence may often be the precursor for homelessness amongst women with children who may be forced to flee the family home in fear of physical violence. However, the rise in homelessness amongst single women (divorced, widowed, never married) over the age of 50 may be more likely attributed to financial circumstances. 

In 2012 UQ researchers Maree Petersen and Andrew Jones of the Institute for Social Sicence Reserach conducted a study under the auspices of the National Homelessness Research Partnership with the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Their report noted that: "... [The] housing crisis ... had negative consequences for physical and emotional health and wellbeing. This pattern appears to be particularly prevalent for women where domestic violence, income insecurity, ill-health and age discrimination cumulatively led to housing insecurity and risk of homelessness."  

The Petersen and Jones report quoted a 2010 study which found that "... of older homeless women in Sydney, one third of the women had lost their home after separation from or death of a partner." (Ludo McFerran, NSW 2010). Petersen and Jones noted that other pathways into homelessness may include life events associated with never obtaining or dropping out of home ownership, unmanageable rent increases, termination of lease, etc. Women, they stated, may be under-represented in homelessness residences, but women are much more likely to be staying with friends or relatives, in supported lodgings or other temporary accommodation.

Section 3 of McFerran's report is well worth a read. It is based on the personal stories of 31 homeless women over the age of 45. Whilst a statistically small sample, McFerran report has some disturbing findings. The risk factors that emerged were:

• Leaving school and having children at a young age
• Employment in low income jobs
• Living alone
• Renting or sharing
• A crisis such as eviction, illness, or losing their job
• The family being unable to help.

The Hanover Housing for the Aged Action Group Inc (HAAG) in Victoria also has a very informative report looking at the impact of gender and location on people aged 55+ who have experienced homelessness or housing crisis. This report compared census night statistics from 2001, 2006 and 2011 to find an serious picture: "Census figures show that between 2001 and 2006, the greatest increase in homelessness occurred among those aged between 55 and 64, where the rate soared by 36% (AIHW 2012)" and "If persons living in other crowded dwellings, other improvised dwellings and those who are marginally housed in caravan parks, are included in the ‘total homeless persons’ category, then homelessness among the 55 and older age group increased by 40% (ABS 2012)."

Older homeless people seem to attract less media attention than families, young people or those who are homeless through violence, but homelessness has no less detrimental effect on them. Quite apart from the psychological effects, there is danger in living on the streets or not having a safe place of one's own. According to a recent report in The Age, "Homelessness experts are pushing for the condition to be listed as an official cause of death, as murder, chronic illness and festering sores continue to claim the lives of some of Victoria's most vulnerable."

Whether this ever happens, in Victoria or nationally, the fact remains that homeless women are a growing demographic and society, as a whole, needs to take responsibility for and care of these people who are so often brushed under the mat as if they don't really exist. They do.