As the annual World Homelessness Day is observed internationally, the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness (CEWH) is shining a light on women’s experiences of housing deprivation in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Living unhoused and unsafe is a reality for over 50,000* women, with evidence showing wāhine Māori, younger women with children and increasingly older women are most impacted, says CEWH Director Victoria Crockford.

The work of CEWH includes commissioning research exploring women’s own experiences of the housing system through the Integrated Data Infrastructure and presenting a shadow report at the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva, which is meeting this week.

Victoria says early insights from the research indicate housing deprived women are 3.3 times more likely to receive a sole parent benefit than other women, are less likely to hold a drivers’ license than housing deprived men (27.9 percent to 40.6 percent) and appear to have lower rates of access to mental health related pharmaceutical prescriptions.

“This is despite many women sharing that mental illness has been a formative part of their experiences of homelessness,” Victoria says.

“A series of interconnected themes is starting to emerge from interviews with kaimahi/frontline workers and women with lived experiences of homelessness, including the experience of trauma, grief and mental illness as a precursor to women’s homelessness, as well as a lack of support during pregnancy.

“When we layer the data that housing deprived women are accessing mental health-related pharmaceuticals less than other women at a rate of 18.5 percent compared to 27.6 percent and are over 12 percent less likely than housing deprived men to hold a full driver’s licence, we see a picture emerging of gendered outcomes being created by different parts of our social support systems.

“This all connects to why women are becoming homeless in the first place.”

Interview evidence highlights age-specific challenges and experiences facing older women include elder abuse, lack of financial control, and the impacts of family or marriage breakdowns.

“Our early insights indicate an increase in women over 55 experiencing housing deprivation, and interviews suggest a lack of a strong financial footing in later life, as well as elder abuse, are contributing factors,” Victoria adds.

“Our unhoused women are ‘hiding’ in plain sight and this World Homelessness Day, we urge the Government to put women’s experiences in the frame when creating housing and social service policies and to make better use of the gendered data that is simply not being used.

“As we prepare for next year’s Budget, we will continue to shine a light on how we will all be better served by ensuring women have access to housing and support services, designed to meet their family, cultural, accessibility, and healthcare needs - as women.”

The full research report into women’s experiences of homelessness will be published at the end of November, including comparative analysis with the 2023 Census data.

Visit the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness website for more information.

Additional notes:

• World Homelessness Day acknowledges the positive progress and advocacy being made to help prevent and end homelessness, while also raising awareness about the needs of people who currently experience homelessness. Visit the World Homelessness Day website for more information.
• *See: https://www.hud.govt.nz/stats-and-insights/2018-severe-housing-deprivation-estimate/
• Data taken from Ending Women’s Homelessness – Insights Report by IHI Research and Coalition to End Women's Homelessness IDI research summary by Taylor Fry.

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