Housing Security for Older Women: A Housing First Response to Hidden Homelessness in Australia

Caitlin Beattie, Curtin University, 2023 Commission on the Status of Women Fellow

Executive Summary

Older women are one of the most vulnerable groups in Australia’s housing crisis, yet their homelessness is frequently hidden from policy view. In 2021, around 7,300 women aged 55 and over were experiencing homelessness, and the number of older women experiencing homelessness had grown by almost 40 per cent between 2011 and 2021 (AIHW, 2025; ABS, 2023). These figures are likely to understate the scale of the problem, as many older women avoid rough sleeping and instead move between cars, temporary accommodation, and informal arrangements with family or friends (AHURI, 2026; AHRC, 2019).

This policy problem is driven by cumulative structural disadvantage. Lower lifetime earnings, the gender pay gap, time out of paid work for caring, lower superannuation balances, family violence, divorce, widowhood, and age discrimination in the labour market all weaken women’s housing security later in life (AHRC, 2019; WGEA, 2025; APH, 2016). As a result, even a relatively small financial shock such as a rent increase, relationship breakdown, or health event can push older women into housing insecurity.

Australia has taken some important steps in response. At the federal level, the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) and related programs now identify older women at risk of homelessness as a priority cohort, and state governments have begun piloting targeted responses, including Western Australia’s transitional housing investment for women over 55 and Queensland’s dedicated support measures (Housing Australia, 2025; DSS, 2025; Government of Western Australia, 2024; Queensland Government, 2025). However, current policy remains fragmented. Existing measures are spread across general homelessness, social housing, and domestic violence frameworks, rather than being designed around the distinctive pathways through which older women experience homelessness.

This paper considers two policy options. The first is a government-led Housing First pilot using small, self-contained dwellings on publicly or community-controlled land, paired with subsidised rent and wraparound support. The second is a leasehold strata model, in which land remains publicly or institutionally owned while individual dwellings are sold at a lower price. While both options would expand housing supply, the Housing First pilot is the stronger response for women already at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness because it does not require significant upfront capital from participants.

This paper recommends that the Australian Government, in partnership with state housing departments and community housing providers, establish a targeted Housing First pilot for women aged 55 and over at risk of homelessness. Using the indicative capital assumptions in this paper, a 130-dwelling pilot would require approximately A$14.3 million in capital expenditure, excluding land acquisition where government or community land is used and excluding recurrent support-service funding. The key risks are funding continuity, local opposition, and the potential concentration of disadvantage. These can be mitigated through dispersed site selection, co-design with local governments and community housing providers, and integration with existing support services.

Problem Identification

Older women’s homelessness is a growing policy challenge because it often occurs outside the stereotypical image of homelessness. Women in later life are less likely to sleep rough in visible public spaces and more likely to stay temporarily with friends, live in insecure boarding arrangements, remain in unsafe housing, or sleep in cars. This makes the problem harder to count and easier to overlook (AHURI, 2026; AHRC, 2019).

Official data nevertheless shows clear growth. AIHW reports that around 7,300 women aged 55 and over were experiencing homelessness in 2021, an increase of almost 40 per cent since 2011 (AIHW, 2025). The 2021 Census also found that women accounted for 81.7 per cent of the overall increase in homelessness between 2016 and 2021, demonstrating that women’s housing insecurity is becoming a more prominent national trend (ABS, 2023).

The causes of this problem are cumulative rather than incidental. Many older women retire with fewer assets and lower superannuation balances than men due to lower wages over the life course, casualised or part-time employment, and unpaid caring responsibilities. WGEA has shown that the gender pay gap persists across the life cycle and widens significantly in later working years, while parliamentary and human rights inquiries have repeatedly linked this economic insecurity to poverty, housing stress, and homelessness in retirement (WGEA, 2025; APH, 2016; AHRC, 2019).

Housing market conditions intensify these structural disadvantages. Rising rents, low vacancy rates, and long social housing waitlists mean that women who have not accumulated housing assets are increasingly exposed to homelessness in later life. Relationship breakdown, domestic and family violence, widowhood, illness, or an unexpected rent increase can become the immediate trigger for homelessness, but the deeper causes are gendered economic inequality and a shortage of affordable, secure housing (AHRC, 2019; AHURI, 2019).

Context

Current Policy Context

The current policy landscape contains several relevant initiatives, but it remains piecemeal. At the Commonwealth level, the HAFF is the centrepiece of the federal housing response. Housing Australia reports that the HAFF and related funding rounds are intended to contribute to 40,000 new social and affordable homes by 2029, with older women at risk of homelessness recognised as a priority cohort in the social and affordable housing funding streams (Housing Australia, 2025; DSS, 2025). This is a significant shift because it formally acknowledges older women within national housing delivery settings.

Even so, the HAFF is not a dedicated older women’s housing strategy. It is a broad housing mechanism with multiple target cohorts and competing delivery demands. As a result, older women may be recognised in principle without receiving a sufficiently tailored response in practice. Their needs differ from those of many other cohorts because they are often entering homelessness for the first time, may require smaller dwellings in safe and well-located communities, and can be especially vulnerable to social isolation, poor health outcomes, and rapid financial decline (AHURI, 2019; AHRC, 2019).

Some state governments have begun developing more targeted responses. In Western Australia, the Cook Government committed more than A$7 million to Uniting WA for a women-only transitional accommodation service in Fremantle for women over 55 experiencing or at risk of homelessness (Government of Western Australia, 2024). Queensland also maintains a dedicated housing and support initiative for older women, and South Australia has established a Housing Security for Older Women Taskforce (Queensland Government, 2025; Government of South Australia, 2025). These measures show that targeted interventions are possible, but they are still limited in scale and vary substantially across jurisdictions.

Civil society has also played a central role. Community housing organisations, women’s housing providers, and advocacy bodies have developed specialist responses that are often more tailored than mainstream homelessness systems. Their work demonstrates both the need for targeted policy and the limits of relying on non-government providers to solve a structural housing problem without sustained public investment.

Policy Options

Option 1: A targeted Housing First pilot for older women

The first option is a targeted Housing First pilot for women aged 55 and over who are experiencing, or at immediate risk of, homelessness. Housing First reverses the traditional staircase model of homelessness policy by providing stable housing as the first intervention, rather than making housing conditional on treatment compliance, crisis navigation, or long stays in temporary accommodation. For older women, this matters because many are entering homelessness for the first time and can deteriorate rapidly once housing is lost (AHURI, 2019).

Under this option, governments would partner with community housing providers to deliver self-contained one-bedroom dwellings on publicly owned, local-government, or community-controlled land. The dwellings should be dispersed across established suburbs rather than concentrated in a single large site. Tenants would pay subsidised rent, ideally capped relative to income, and would be linked to wraparound services where needed, including financial counselling, health care navigation, domestic violence support, and tenancy sustainment services.

This option has three principal strengths. First, it directly addresses the immediate housing need of women who do not have the savings required to enter home ownership. Second, it can be delivered relatively quickly if modular or demountable dwellings are used on serviced land. Third, it aligns with the growing recognition in federal and state policy that older women require targeted support rather than a generic homelessness response.

Using the indicative assumptions in the draft paper, a 130-dwelling pilot at approximately A$110,000 per dwelling would require around A$14.3 million in capital expenditure. In practice, the full cost would depend on site servicing, design standards, accessibility requirements, and support-service intensity. Responsibility for implementation should sit with state housing departments and community housing providers, with Commonwealth co-funding through existing social and affordable housing streams.

The major weakness of this option is the need for ongoing public investment. Capital expenditure alone will not secure long-term success if recurrent funding for tenancy management and support services is absent. There is also a political risk that small-site social housing may attract local resistance. However, these concerns are manageable and do not outweigh the policy fit of the model.

Option 2: Leasehold strata housing for lower-cost ownership

The second option is a leasehold strata model in which land remains in public, institutional, or community ownership while residents purchase the dwelling itself under a long-term lease arrangement. This lowers the upfront cost of ownership because buyers do not need to purchase the land component. In theory, the model could support older women with modest assets to move into more secure housing at lower cost than the mainstream market.

This option has some strengths. It can generate an income stream for the landowner through lease payments, activate underused land, and create an intermediate tenure between full market ownership and social housing. It may be particularly attractive for older women who are not eligible for social housing but who still face acute affordability pressures.

However, the model is less suitable as the primary response to homelessness risk. It assumes that participants have enough savings, borrowing capacity, or asset backing to purchase a dwelling. Many women at greatest risk of homelessness do not. The model is also comparatively complex, requiring clear legal design, lender confidence, purchaser protections, and careful public communication. Using the indicative assumption in the draft paper of A$60,000 per dwelling, a 100-home pilot would require around A$6 million in build costs before site works, legal structuring, and administration are considered.

For these reasons, leasehold strata is better understood as a complementary affordable housing pathway for lower-income older women with some capital, rather than as the lead response for women already facing homelessness.

Policy Recommendation

Option 1, a targeted Housing First pilot for older women, is the recommended policy. It is the stronger option because it is better aligned to the actual profile of women most at risk of homelessness: women with limited savings, limited borrowing capacity, and an urgent need for secure housing.

The Commonwealth should establish a dedicated older women’s housing stream within existing social and affordable housing settings, with implementation delivered in partnership with state and territory housing agencies and registered community housing providers. The lead Commonwealth departments should be Housing Australia and the Department of Social Services, working alongside state housing authorities. Local governments should assist with site identification and planning approval, while community housing providers should manage allocations and tenancy support.

The pilot should initially deliver 130 dwellings across multiple metropolitan and regional locations with demonstrated housing stress. Eligibility should prioritise women aged 55 and over who are homeless, at imminent risk of homelessness, or transitioning out of unsafe housing, including family violence settings. The dwellings should be self-contained, accessible, and integrated within existing communities so that residents remain close to transport, health services, and social networks.

Risks

Barriers and Risks

The first barrier is fiscal. Even a modest pilot requires capital expenditure and recurrent support funding at a time when governments face pressure across housing, health, and cost-of-living portfolios. This risk can be mitigated by using public or community land, co-funding with states, and embedding the pilot within existing HAFF and homelessness funding structures rather than creating a wholly separate program.

The second barrier is visibility and political salience. Older women’s homelessness remains less visible than rough sleeping, which can reduce policy urgency. Yet this is precisely why a targeted response is needed. Women who are couch surfing, living in cars, or staying in unsafe homes often fall outside the public imagination of homelessness even though they face serious harm (AHURI, 2026; AHRC, 2019).

The third barrier is the risk of concentrating disadvantage or creating stigmatised housing sites. This can be reduced through dispersed delivery, design quality, and tenancy models that integrate residents into established neighbourhoods rather than isolating them in large, single-purpose compounds.

The fourth barrier is coordination. Housing policy sits across Commonwealth funding, state delivery, local planning, and non-government service provision. Without clear role allocation, targeted initiatives can stall. For this reason, the recommended model deliberately assigns strategic funding leadership to the Commonwealth, delivery leadership to state housing authorities and community housing providers, and local facilitation to councils.

Conclusion

Older women’s homelessness is no longer a marginal policy issue. It is a visible consequence of gendered economic inequality meeting a severe shortage of affordable, secure housing. Australia has begun to recognise the issue within broader housing frameworks, but recognition alone is not enough.

A targeted Housing First pilot for women aged 55 and over would provide a clear, practical and scalable response. It would match the lived reality of women who do not need a more complex assessment pathway or a home ownership product, but a safe home now. By pairing rapid access to secure housing with modest wraparound support and well-designed intergovernmental delivery, governments can reduce pressure on homelessness systems while improving safety, dignity, and housing security for older women.

References

ABS (2023) Estimating Homelessness: Census 2021. Australian Bureau of Statistics.

AHRC (2019) Older Women’s Risk of Homelessness: Background Paper. Australian Human Rights Commission.

AHURI (2019) An Effective Homelessness Services System for Older Australians. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

AHURI (2026) No Matter Where You Look, Women Face Housing Challenges. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

AIHW (2025) Homelessness Services: Older Clients. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

APH (2016) Economic Security for Women in Retirement. Australian Parliament House, Senate Economics References Committee.

Department of Social Services (2025) Housing Australia Future Fund - Social and Affordable Housing; Housing Security for Older Women Taskforce. Australian Government.

Government of Queensland (2025) Housing and Support for Older Women. Queensland Government.

Government of South Australia (2025) Improving Housing Security for Older Women. South Australian Housing Trust.

Government of Western Australia (2024) New Housing Boost for Women Over 55 Experiencing Homelessness. Government of Western Australia.

Housing Australia (2025) Funding Under the Housing Australia Future Fund.

WGEA (2025) Ages and Wages 2025. Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

The views and opinions expressed by Global Voices Fellows do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation or its staff.