INTERNATIONAL STORY PAGE TITLE way to Catherine House, an accommodation and support service for women experiencing homelessness. “If I can do anything to break down the stereotypes of, ‘Oh well, they’re too busy drinking,’ or, ‘They’re too lazy to get up and work,’ then that’s what I want to do,” she says. “It isn’t as simple as finding a job and finding a new place to live. It just isn’t.” Family violence, mental health issues, caring responsibilities, and housing supply and demand. As Georgina says, it’s not just one thing – it’s a combination. For Maria, taking time out of paid work to care for her husband was when her situation really began to slide. But what else was she supposed to do? Economists call the kind of unpaid work Maria was doing – unpaid caring for family members – “informal care work”. A 2020 Deloitte report estimated that the replacement cost of all the unpaid informal care work done in Australia per year would be $77.9 billion. Most of this work – at least 60% – is done by women. Unpaid childcare is, of course, a large part of this picture, too. In 2017 Price Waterhouse Cooper found that women undertake 72% of all unpaid work in Australia, including childcare and housework. With women doing so much unpaid labor and planning their paid work around their caring commitments, is it any wonder they’re not putting much money away for retirement? The median superannuation balance for men aged 60–64 years is $204,107, whereas, for women in the same age group, it is $146,900. Caring work has had an enormous impact on Georgina’s financial and housing situation. She had worked full-time in office jobs for many years when she became a single mother in her early forties. When Georgina’s child was young, her own mother became seriously ill. For 11 years, she was her carer. “She had an aneurysm, which is very painful, and she had heart problems. You name it, she had it,” says Georgina. “She needed 24-hour care. I was basically a nurse.” Georgina managed to do some casual and freelance work during those years, but it wasn’t possible – with both her daughter and mother as dependants – for her to do the kind of paid work you need to do to get ahead, to save money, or to pay for house maintenance. “Caring work isolates you,” she says. “It can really impact your life in a huge way. It’s very tiring. I became very depressed. I felt like a prisoner.” After her mother died, Georgina and her daughter moved around for years after that, sometimes staying in hotels – “crummy ones” – and in various unsuitable and expensive rentals. “My daughter and I both had health issues. If your child is sick and has to see a specialist – well, the money just evaporates.” Georgina, by this stage, had not been in steady, paid work for a long time. “I was getting on in years by then,” she says with a laugh. “One day, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘My god, who’s that?’” Georgina now lives in a place she calls a “short-term hotel”. The rent is much higher than her pension and she’s always behind with payments. There’s no heating, no cooling. The main problem, Georgina says, is that it’s dangerous. Some of the other tenants are frightening. Drug deals are happening all around. “It’s like somewhere you would squat,” she says. “Almost worse than being on the street. It’s like watching something fall on you. It’s coming down slowly, but it’s coming.” Unpaid caring responsibilities make it hard to get ahead, but family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for all women and children in Australia. Kylie from Ballina, in northern New South Wales, has the double whammy. She’s a single mother of four and a survivor of domestic abuse. She split up with her husband years ago, but the violence during their marriage set in motion a chain of effects that she still feels today. “I didn’t know what was happening with the violence until it was happening,” she says. “The insecurity that has come from it, all the stress – it was a shock. I’d always been a worker, always had stability, but I’ve been stressed for 22 years now.” Kylie was able to keep living in the family home, with protective orders against her husband, for a few years after they split up. Then the landlord decided to sell. “Rents had gone up so much. I found another place nearby, but then I was paying about $600 per week. With $1500 per fortnight income to care for your kids, it’s a nightmare.” Australia’s housing crisis is hitting the regions hard. The Northern Rivers region – famous for its scenic valleys and suburban beaches – is now notorious for skyrocketing property prices and rising rents that price people like Kylie out of their own hometowns. Worker migration from the cities during the pandemic hasn’t helped. “You go to house inspections and somebody’ll just sidle up to the agent and say, ‘I’ll pay six months up front and an extra $50 per week,’ and that just puts someone like me completely out of the picture.” Things came to a head in July 2021, when Kylie’s landlord decided to renovate. She’d been on the public housing waiting list at this point, she says, for more than 10 years. She couldn’t find anywhere else to go. Now in her fifties, with four kids in high school, Kylie had to move into temporary accommodation in Lismore. She lost valuables in the floods and was almost on the street when local community service Social Futures helped her secure a small, self-contained house in a caravan park in Alstonville. “It is just such a relief to have this place, and I’m so grateful, but I’m sleeping on the dining room floor and I’ll be there for a while, I think.” Kylie’s a creative person – she’s a trained ballerina, she’s written a children’s book and she’s also a singer. While Kylie’s in Alstonville, she’ll be working towards some goals. “I want to find a way to get back to Ballina,” she says. “The kids’ school’s there, they all have after-school jobs there, and my elderly mum’s there. One day I’d love to get back to doing some gigs again, too.” That’s not a lot to ask. ■ *Names have been changed. ILLUSTRATION BY LUCI EVERETT Courtesy of The Big Issue Australia / International Network of Street Papers VOLUNTEER WITH US! We are looking for volunteers to support our program coordination by helping with paper distribution and basic offi ce administration at the Denver VOICE offi ce (989 Santa Fe Dr.) from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. If you are interested and would like to know more, contact us at: program@denvervoice.org April 2023 DENVER VOICE 11 DONATE YOUR CAR! Need to get rid of your car, truck, or motorcycle? Consider donating it to Denver VOICE. Call (855) 500-7433, or go to: careasy.org/nonprofi t/denver-voice. Your donation helps Denver VOICE succeed in its mission to provide individuals experiencing homelessness or poverty the chance towards a more stable life. The Denver VOICE empowers homeless, impoverished, and transient individuals by creating job opportunities through our vendor program. We facilitate a dialogue addressing the roots of homelessness by telling stories of people whose lives are impacted by poverty and homelessness and to offer economic, educational, and empowerment opportunities for the impoverished community.
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