Why Women's Housing?

Women And Housing

There is a serious housing affordability problem in Victoria that has arisen due to a number of inter-related processes.

During the last decade average house prices relative to income have doubled
Changes in family structure - increased divorce, an increase in single householders
Decline in the supply of low cost housing stock through gentrification
Decline in the provision of social housing of approximately 20% between 1996-2004
An increase in construction costs
Deinstitutionalization
Increase in jobless households

This situation is exacerbated for women for the following reasons:

Discrimination gaining access to private rental accommodation
Discrimination gaining access to financial loans
Women make up only 33% of the paid full-time work force
70% of primary care givers are women
Lack of affordable child-care hinders women re-entering the workforce and if they do, they will often compromise their work opportunities because of their primary carer status and then wind up in a pattern of irregular, part-time and casual work and hence unreliable sources of income
90% of single headed households are women with children - juggling work, family commitments and associated costs

UN Report

"Women experience violations of housing rights alongside other members of their family and community. However, women also face violations of housing rights because of situations which predominantly affect women. For example, women are much more likely than men to be the victims of domestic violence, and this often threatens their housing rights as they are forced to flee the violent home. Women may also suffer different impacts as a result of the housing right violation. For example, the great majority of single parents are women. If a single mother is made homeless, she also has to find resources to care for her children. Also women may not have the same access to redress in law as other members of the family or the community. Any pre-existing discrimination women may be facing because of their sex/gender and because of their class, ethnicity, race, disability or other status, may have a further impact on preventing women from asserting their right to adequate housing."

Source: Coalition of Non-Government Workers throughout Australia, The report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Women and the Right to Adequate Housing in Australia

For the above reasons, the VWHA aims to develop suitable, safe, secure affordable housing for women and their families who experience disadvantage.

Some Statistics on Housing & Homelessness

Furthermore, it is estimated that:

1.5 million low income Australians are now suffering from housing stress compared with 742,000 households in 1999
Approximately half of these households are renting privately
On any given night 100,000 people are homeless

Why should we be concerned?

Affordable, appropriate and secure housing is a basic need and right that is not being adequately provided by the public or private sectors.
The right to adequate housing contained in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is:

"The right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself [sic] and his family including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions."
This right is also contained in other human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Stable housing is a critical element of well-being, labour market efficiency and social cohesion within communities.
Lack of affordable, appropriate and secure housing creates social, economic and spatial polarization within communities and leads to 'social unrest' and is socially unjust.