we are failing her

Homelessness Week edition

By Diana Sayed

She’s still going to work, still posting on socials and pretending everything is okay. But underneath all of that, she’s couch surfing between friends, or sleeping in her car after leaving a violent partner. She might be staying with someone she doesn’t trust because there’s no one else, and she’s too ashamed to say out loud that she doesn’t have a safe place to call home, or the means to find one.

It’s important to understand that homelessness isn’t always visible, and for young women especially, those 16 to 18 and 25 to 34 years of age, it rarely is. Unfortunately, they are the fastest-growing cohort of people experiencing homelessness today, according to the latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

While the conversations about housing have become obsessed with rising interest rates, first-home buyer schemes, the banks of mum and dad, and whether Gen Z will ever own property rage on, thousands of young women are asking a far more basic question: do I have somewhere safe to sleep tonight? Young women haven’t suddenly forgotten how to budget or made poor choices; it’s because systems are colliding.

from the desk of junkee editor-in-chief soph, here’s my media diet this week.

read: say nothing by patrick radden keefe | devoured london falling when it came out in april, am now on a mission to inhale his entire works.

play: divinity 2 \ after my chat with acclaimed videogame actor neil newbon, i was hungry for a narrative-rich rpg that wasn’t me playing the witcher 3 again.

listen: chuck timely & the hourglass (out aug 7) | kansas anymore was beautiful, sentimental, and a lil bit sad, but our boy tucker is back on the joy train. love to see (and hear!) it.

watch: teenage sex and death at camp miasma (in cinemas aug 6) | subverts the pleasure = punishment of typical slasher flicks. what you get is a highly original exploration of female sexuality and, interestingly, fandom.

Homelessness and domestic violence are two sides of the same story, and we can’t talk about action to end homelessness for women without talking about women’s safety. Equally, we can’t talk about action on ending gendered violence without housing being part of the solution.

As rents continue to climb, social housing hasn’t kept pace with demand, the cost of living is squeezing every household, and specialist services are overwhelmed. When a young woman leaves violence, she is taking a step towards safety and independence, but it often requires a large pool of accessible cash, time to rebuild housing stability, develop financial security, and social connections.

Too often, women encounter systems that are fragmented and difficult to navigate, requiring them to engage with multiple services to access the support they need. Every service solves one piece of the puzzle while another piece falls apart. Sometimes we see complete disengagement and falling through the gaps.

That’s a system designed not to support young women.

For First Nations women, women with disability, migrant and refugee women, and LGBTQIA+ young people, housing solutions must recognise and respond to diverse experiences and strengths. Intersectionality is the difference between a service working for someone or missing them entirely.

“Our systems are failing young women because they were never designed to recognise how gender, violence, race, disability and housing insecurity intersect. As a result, far too many young women will tonight find themselves without a permanent roof over their heads, forgotten by a system that continues to overlook their lived experiences,” says Linda Le, Young Women’s Council Member and YWCA Australia Board Member.

“Ironically, these very young people hold the key to solving homelessness. We need to listen to them and their lived experiences to actually put their solutions at the centre of future policy on this issue.”

The Albanese Government has rightly recognised that housing and homelessness require long-term reform through Homes for Australia: A National Plan, with one of its priorities focused on supporting people experiencing homelessness and family and domestic violence. That’s an important step. There is also an opportunity with the Second Action Plan to End Violence Against Women to centre housing as a solution.

Housing responses must recognise the gendered realities that shape women’s experiences of housing insecurity, and critical to this is long-term housing options, not just crisis responses. If we don’t formally recognise this link, we fail to address housing as foundational to ensure women’s safety, and in doing so, we are failing them.

Housing is so much more than a literal roof over someone’s head. It’s safety. It’s freedom. It’s dignity. It’s agency to choose between leaving violence, knowing you have a safe and secure home to go to. It’s the foundation that allows young women and gender diverse people to plan for the future with confidence.

Diana Sayed is the CEO of YWCA Australia.