The Voices of Older Women facing housing insecurity in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Single, older women in the State of Victoria, Australia, have emerged as a group experiencing housing insecurity and being highly vulnerable to homelessness in their old age. A sizable demographic cohort, it is a group that could overwhelm the existing homelessness service system. One of the most surprising aspects of this trend is their propensity to be tertiary educated. Focus groups revealed 'critical life events' as significant, and a shared 'control belief' in the value of education. Given that education is a key means by which Australian governments seek to remedy homelessness, the entry of educated women into the homelessness population suggests policy needs to re-examine homelessness causation and explicitly apply a gender-lens