INTERNATIONAL STORY HIDDEN HOMELESSNESS AMONG OLDER WOMEN BY SOPHIE QUICK WHEN GEORGINA* MOVED from her family home in Melbourne to Sydney, aged 19, she saw homelessness on the streets for the first time. There were people sleeping rough at Central Station. “It was an eye-opener to me,” she says. “I’d lived a sheltered life. I’d never seen it before. I didn’t know such a thing existed.” That was a long time ago. Now Georgina is 78 and she’s experiencing homelessness herself. “My story is hard to explain but it’s not unique,” she says. “People think it’s one thing in life, one big event, that brings you down. But it’s not always that simple. It’s the combination of things.” In Georgina’s case, and in the case of many older women living with housing insecurity, it’s also how these things compound over time. Older women are bearing the brunt of Australia’s escalating housing crisis. It’s been happening for years. Women aged 55 and over were the fastest-growing cohort of people experiencing homelessness in Australia between 2011 and 2016, increasing by 31%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By 2030, it’s predicted that 15,000 Australian women over 55 will be without a home. It’s a problem that hasn’t always been well understood. Older women tend to use different strategies than younger people, and men, to cope with housing insecurity. They are less likely to sleep rough. They’re more likely to live in cars, couch surf, or sleep in improvised dwellings on other people’s property. This means they’re less visible – “the hidden homeless”. Crisis and community housing services say many women seeking emergency housing in their fifties or sixties have stable housing histories. Many are seeking support for the first time in their lives. That’s Maria’s* situation. She’s worked full-time for her entire adult life. At one point, she ran her own business. But she couldn’t find any place to rent in Adelaide in 2022. “I was getting knocked back everywhere, even though I had good rental references, a good credit background. Demand just doesn’t meet supply… One day I woke up and I realized, ‘Oh my god, I’m homeless. I’m a statistic,’” she says. It was Maria’s first housing crisis, but it wasn’t her first life crisis. Many years earlier, she moved across the country to escape her violent husband. The experience took its toll, including financially, but she’d managed to get back on her feet and married again in her late forties. In 2019, Maria was living in Alice Springs, working as the office manager for her second husband’s business. But he became terminally ill and they had to move to Adelaide for medical care. “I was his full-time carer until he passed,” Maria says. “I’ve struggled with mental health on and off, especially depression. It was a dark time that led to an even darker time.” Money from the sale of the house in Alice Springs went to her husband’s children. Maria inherited her husband’s super, but that didn’t last long. She used it to pay rent and was struggling to find a job while grieving. She’d already been through most of her own savings while her husband was sick. “About seven months after he passed, I was told there was going to be a rent increase. I was scrambling to find a job but now there was a big gap in my résumé. I was scrambling to find a home for my two German shepherds, too, because nobody wants a tenant with dogs.” Maria couldn’t even get a rental without the dogs. “I found a beautiful new home for them, thank God. In the end, I just couldn’t find anywhere for myself and I fell into a total black hole of depression.” This was the breaking point for Maria. She ended up at s short-stay mental health unit. And after several other short stays, she was able to stabilize her medication and find her ILLUSTRATION BY LUCI EVERETT 10 DENVER VOICE April 2023
11 Publizr Home