Women are much less likely than men to have a mortgage-free home by the time they retire, and the number facing homelessness is rising sharply. In this second part of her Ageing in poverty feature, Sarah Catherall looks at transitional housing - and how few women are lucky enough to find a place.
In Wellington’s Courtenay Place, homeless or “rough sleeping” men and women often gather outside shops and food outlets or in nearby Te Aro Park beneath mounds of blankets, often with bottles of booze. Some prefer to sit alone, others fill in the day in small groups.
A few metres away down an alley, Te Whare Nukunoa (Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust ) is a warm sanctuary. Social worker Hiria Tareha runs the transitional housing facility, bringing her management style of tough love mixed with warmth to the place, an approach that has earned her the nickname “Tornado”.
The 14-bedroom facility has a waiting list of 42 women who want to get off the streets, off couches or out of friends’ garages.
Half the country’s homeless are women. While pensioner flats don’t take someone under 65, a homeless person is defined as elderly by the age of 55.
Fuchsia, 59, is visiting Te Whare Nukunoa for a workshop but she’s not staying there. Her situation, she says, is “complicated’' and she is a regular visitor. A shopping trolley is parked up in the kitchen, full of her blankets and clothes. “This is my house and my car,” she says as she gestures to it, breaking into a grin.
“I’m blessed I come here. I can feel the love. I look forward to the night crafts. I look forward to those.”
Tareha wears a brightly coloured scarf on her head, swiping through doors via a pass dangling on a cord around her neck. She talks to the wāhine as we meet them on our tour, referring to them individually as “honey’' and “darling’'.
Tareha works a day shift but the women often need 24/7 care so she’ll drive in from her home in Tītahi Bay, 20km away, if need be. She’s passionate about her purpose to give these women a helping hand to try to get them independent and off the streets.
“Our girls come with a minimum of three addictions or issues. They don’t come with one. We think about which one could they give up. We talk about these as luxuries. If our girls went from drinking a 1125ml bottle of alcohol a day to drinking that amount every three days, that’s progression.’’
She promotes a “Walk” programme: Well-being, Activity, Loving yourself. The K is for Kilometre: “your journey, one step at a time.”
“I look at our whare as something like a waka with no paddles. It can keep you afloat, but someone’s got to do the work. The waka can’t do the work on its own.”
Set up in 2013, nine of the 14 rooms are funded through a Ministry of Social Development contract. It is one of three such facilities for homeless women across the motu – another is in Ponsonby, run by the Auckland City Mission; in Tauranga, He Kaupapa Kotahitanga Trust Tauranga runs its 13-bedroom Awhina House. (These places are different from women’s refuges, which house female victims of domestic violence and their children.)
But with at least 50,000 women defining themselves as homeless in New Zealand according to the 2023 Census, advocates say more needs to be done. Those at the helm of female homeless shelters recently established the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness. Its national convenor, Victoria Crockford, says homeless women have specific needs, but national funding and policies are designed for a homeless male – one who is single and sleeping rough.
“Many women experience homelessness as couch surfing, as an outcome of domestic violence or elder abuse, and many are mothers or have responsibility for kids. We do not have nearly enough houses and support systems to support these women.’’
Crockford is concerned about the government’s $350 million cut to the emergency housing budget in the May Budget at a time when social housing providers already have waitlists.
Auckland City Mission CEO Helen Robinson – a member of the coalition – oversees the 17-bed transitional residence for homeless women in Ponsonby. The women are supposed to stay for three months and then be rehoused in permanent accommodation, but Robinson says there is often nowhere for them to go.
“Our housing system is currently designed to meet the needs of men, and primarily single men.
“We have a dearth of facilities for women and we need more of them. There is a gender blindness. It makes me wild.”
Read more: Budget food and a cold rental: The retirement reality for many women in NZ
