The number of women and girls seeking help from homelessness services while experiencing family violence and mental health issues soared by six per cent in just two years, new data has revealed, as Australia’s peak body combatting the scourge heads to Canberra.
Homelessness Australia will present the shocking new analysis to MPs and senators in a briefing on Thursday, as policymakers discuss the next phase of the nation’s approach to homelessness.
The peak body found almost 30,000 women and girls sought help in 2024-25 for homelessness while undergoing both family or domestic violence and mental health issues.
About two in five women – or about 12,000 people – were still homeless when their support ended, rising 14 per cent in just two years.
Among those women, a whopping almost 80 per cent were aged under 45.
Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin said the findings revealed the “contemporary face” of Australia’s homelessness crisis – women the peak body said who were increasingly trapped in a “doom loop”.
“The person at the centre of this crisis is not who most people picture,” she said.
“These are young women who have fled a violent home and have nowhere safe to go. Without housing and without ongoing support, there is no way out.”
Ms Colvin said for too many women, it was a choice between “violence on the street or violence at home”.
“A woman may well calculate that a man offering a place to stay with strings attached is the least worst option,” she said.
“That is not a choice anyone in this country should have to make, yet we are forcing it on vulnerable women and girls every day.”
‘Day to day’
Among the women and girls to seek help is Brina, who said she had been homeless off and on since she was 14-years-old.
She said she, at times, was offered sex in exchange for a roof over her head.
“I was in and out of prison and mental health wards,” she said.
“After spending 18 months in prison, I fell pregnant with my son and was placed in a hotel where there was drug use all around me.
“It was incredibly difficult to find a way out of that environment.”
Eventually, Brin was referred to a supportive housing program.
“It gave me a safe, secure home and a solid foundation to start rebuilding my life, but just as importantly it gave me ongoing support,” he said,
“That might sound like something very simple, but when you’ve spent years struggling and trying to survive on your own, having somebody there to check in on you makes an enormous difference. When you’re surviving hour by hour and day by day, you don’t really have the chance to deal with everything else going on in your life.
“Since being in the program I’ve been able to stay sober and engage with alcohol and other drug programs.
“My son and daughter now have a safe home, and I’m able to give my children something I couldn’t give them before – a mum who is safe, sober, stable and present.”
‘Woman’s safety issue’
About ⅔ of people receiving homelessness support while suffering from mental health issues were women, according to the findings.
Almost half were aged between 25 and 44-years-old.
Greens Leader Larissa Waters said housing was a “women’s safety issue”.
“Governments need to start treating it that way,” she said.
“When a woman is fleeing violence, an affordable place to live can be the difference between safety or being forced back into a dangerous home.”
Earlier this month, the Greens called for $4bn in funding from the government to address a shortfall in social housing for women escaping violence.
“Women cannot leave violence permanently if there is nowhere for them and their children to go. The Greens want to see serious investment in public housing and full funding for the frontline services that are already doing the work on the ground,” she said.
“Crisis accommodation, housing services, family violence services and mental health support all need to be properly funded and working together. These services are under enormous pressure, and women should never be turned away when they are reaching out for help.
“The Greens know the government can fund this, and so does Labor. What’s missing is the political will to protect people, not corporate profits.”
Homelessness Australia has also sought to pressure the government to treat housing, mental health, and family and domestic violence as interconnected problems, in particular for women.
The next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement and the next action plan on violence against women are currently being developed by the federal government.
“Women with complex needs require housing and ongoing support together,’ Ms Colvin said.
“The agreement is the opportunity to finally join those two things up.”
A 2024-25 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report found women and children experiencing family and domestic violence were the largest cohort of people accessing specialist homelessness services, with more than 100,000 seeking help each year.
However, almost 12,000 women and children seeking short-term accommodation were missing out, with some 60 per cent of victim-survivors unable to secure more stable housing by the time they left crisis accommodation.
Last year, the Albanese government announced it would spend $100m on new crisis, transitional, and youth housing as part of the $1bn Housing Australia Future Fund.
The fund, announced in 2023, is intended to deliver 55,000 social and affordable homes by mid-2029, though the program writ large has difficulties and is unlikely to reach its targets.