Diana is a 53-year-old single mother who lives in Victoria. She has battled tenaciously with this disease while working just as doggedly to secure a stable future for her young daughter, Emma. Having spent at least part of her childhood on a farm, Diana appreciates the convenience of being able to grow your own food. Life’s cruel circumstances have landed her in a dangerous housing situation. Displaced several times, Diana and Emma eventually wound up living out of a car. This is just a glimpse into the awful conditions that so many of our single mothers experience.
Diana rents a four-bedroom house that costs $535 a week. Her path to getting into stable housing has been fraught with challenges. Even though she had applied to 122 different rentals, her applications were denied over and over again. The stress of their housing situation aggravated Diana’s pre-existing PTSD, a result of many years of trauma. Last year was a nightmare for her. After a long and discouraging search for a new home, she and Emma were once again uprooted, adding to their sense of defeat and exposure.
“It was the worst time of our lives. It was absolutely devastating and it caused us so much stress,” Diana remarked about her experiences in the housing market.
Diana’s difficulties became acute when she had an urgent surgery to remove a sarcoma from her leg. In the midst of all this, she was fighting cancer, which took a serious toll on her health. “I was battling cancer at that stage. It had affected my stomach, and I was on a feeding tube practically 24/7,” she shared. Living in her car, she said, made controlling her diabetes almost impossible. Being able to have feeds directly pass through to my stomach living in the car, I needed to really rig it up on emergency power sources. “It was so hard,” she recalled.
After facing the hardship of homelessness, Diana and Emma discovered a light at the end with St Vincent de Paul. They were given help and spent a year in refuge in Melbourne. “Finally, St Vincent de Paul got us into a safe house in Melbourne and we stayed there for a year,” she said, reflecting on the relief that came from having a stable roof over their heads.
Diana makes money in other ways, too. She operates a ceramics business out of her home, making about $15,000 per year selling her work. Her health challenges created a barrier to working consistently. Even when we did find a property, I was in PTSD unfit to work. My kids stepped in and did what they were able to do, which was not even close to enough to pay their rent, which she said of course.
Yet the plight of women like Diana is a rapidly growing reality. As Women’s Homelessness Alliance advocate Kate Colvin underscores, women are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. In the last three years, the numbers of women and girls who go to the homeless services have risen by 20 percent. “Around 45 percent are fleeing family and domestic violence. Others are squeezed out into homelessness by the rental crisis,” Colvin stated.
That’s the goal of a new $3 million, three-year pilot project that started earlier this year in regional New South Wales. It’s centered around building tiny, green homes for women at risk of losing their homes to the booming crisis. Mandy Richards, an advocate for the initiative, emphasized its importance: “These homes are for women who are completely locked out of the housing market. Empowering women to become economically secure is essential. By taking these steps, we can end homelessness for thousands of women and children, no longer forcing them to dwell in a car or on someone else’s couch.
Diana is just one of the women whose lives have been negatively impacted by this extreme initiative. She dreams of one day being able to buy a home with a garden attached, where she and Emma won’t need to worry about harassment. “Imagine, just imagine moving into our own home with a garden, knowing that it’s safe,” she expressed with hope. “And it would be ours. No one could take it away from us.”
The new housing initiative serves as a beacon of hope for women like Diana. Yet, against all odds, they never give up. As they navigate the complexities of health issues, financial instability, and housing insecurity, such programs offer the possibility of stability and a brighter future.
