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Below you will find a copy of the main stories that
appeared in the August 2004 edition of the QWHN News.
WOMEN, HEALTH AND HOUSING
When people think about
homelessness they frequently think of the older single male sleeping on a
park bench but this is only part of the picture. Today many of the people
who turn up to homeless services like Family Emergency Accommodation
Townsville (FEAT) are women and their young children. Family homelessness
tends to be hidden from the public eye, but because we don’t see families
living on the streets doesn’t mean that there aren’t homeless families.
According to ABS data there are over 100,000 people in Australia who are
homeless and about 58% of all the people who present at services are
women; frequently these are sole parents with their children.
It’s hard to imagine
that homelessness exists in a wealthy country like Australia especially at
a time when we are supposedly experiencing an economic and housing boom.
The Supported
Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) helps fund a number of homeless
services in Townsville such as FEAT. FEAT is a community based and managed
service which has been assisting homeless families in the Townsville and
Thuringowa areas for over 25 years. FEAT provides support and housing for
families with dependant children. Last year FEAT assisted 395 families;
about 300 of these families were women and their children. Last year FEAT
housed 115 of those families. FEAT tries to give families time to get back
on their feet by providing support and housing in a way that is
non-judgmental and encouraging. We provide a range of housing options
including crisis and long term housing as well as access to financial
assistance to either maintain or obtain housing. Most of the families that
FEAT works with are sole parent families and about 76% of all clients are
women. Women and children are over represented among users of homelessness
services, reflecting the fact that sole parents must often contend with
many causes and effects of disadvantage.
Women can find themselves
either homeless or in housing crisis for a variety of reasons with
poverty, domestic violence and relationship breakdown being the major
issues. For all people (male & female) contacting SAAP services, domestic
violence is cited as the major reason for their homelessness. Many of
these women and children end up in non domestic violence specific services
like FEAT. Relationship breakdowns and domestic violence often affect a
woman’s ability to maintain rental accommodation following violent
incidents, damage and rent issues. Women are frequently evicted from
properties because of male behaviour. We know that those who are victims
of family violence are much more likely to become homeless.
Women and children can
often experience poverty due to domestic violence and relationship
breakdown. This can impact on their housing situation particularly if they
are paying a high percentage of their income on housing. For these
families who are already struggling to meet their housing costs and who
are already in a precarious financial situation it doesn’t take much to be
tipped over the edge and into housing crisis or homelessness.
The lack of affordable
housing also pushes families into housing related poverty. In
Townsville there is a chronic lack of both low cost housing and
public housing. Public Housing wait list times have increased, with the
average wait time being up to 2 years for 2-bedroom accommodation; it can
be much longer for other types of housing. Accessing affordable housing
is a major problem for women and children with the current housing boom at
the high end of the market meaning that rent prices are pushed upwards and
often out of the range of families. Women and their children, particularly
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander women, face discrimination within the
private rental market.
Homelessness impacts on
so many areas of a persons life including, health, employment,
relationships and parenting. A lack of housing can mean access to other
services and to employment is severely hampered. We often take for granted
what it means to have our own place that is safe and secure until we are
without it. Not having a place to call your own is very de-stabilising,
particularly for women with children. For children this can mean even
attending school and feeling part of the community is impossible.
We know that people who
are homeless have many more health problems than those with stable
housing; we also know that it contributes to a family’s support system.
The effects of homelessness on children has been well documented. It
impacts on children’s health, education and development. The stress that
mothers experience because of homelessness also has a negative impact on
their children. If money is tight and parents are struggling just to find
a roof to put over their heads then things like providing the emotional
and physical supports for children can get overridden. As a result,
children might miss out on birthdays, school events etc. We also know that
children who move around a lot and attend a lot of different
schools—particularly from an early age—can be lagging behind
developmentally and educationally. Parents can also experience feelings
of shame, guilt and a sense of failure for not being able to provide a
home. Frequently women express their feeling of inadequacy as mothers; as
they struggle to do the best they can.
Although this all sounds
pretty grim, we do know that the majority of women and children who are
assisted by homeless services like FEAT do manage to get back on their
feet and secure their own accommodation. The quicker families have their
own accommodation and are able to participate in the community the better.
Case
Studies
A 35
year old women with a 5 year old child presented at the agency in the
later stages of pregnancy. She had developed gestational diabetes and was
finding it difficult to cope with the demands of a small child as well as
her health needs. They had been sleeping on the lounge room floor of a
friends place after losing her own accommodation after a relationship
break up. There was no privacy for this woman and her child and she had to
spend most of the day wandering around town so that she didn’t get in the
way at her friends house. She was hospitalised for a couple of days but
was released back into the same situation. FEAT became aware of the
situation and she was placed into short term crisis housing.
Mental health problems
can appear amongst the homeless women that present to the FEAT office, and
are often exacerbated by the precarious living situations that many women
find themselves in.
Jane
had been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder during her late teens and had
struggled to find safe and secure housing for herself and her 3 children
over the last 10 years. They often stayed for only short periods of time
in expensive temporary accommodation or moved around among friends and
family. The constant moving was not conducive to Jane being able to
stabilise her mental health issues and was difficult for her children.
Jane’s mental and physical health deteriorated during this time and it
became a cycle of ill-health and homelessness. Jane was eventually
assisted by FEAT into our long term community housing and was able to
receive support to stabilise her situation.
Ruth Stainbrook, Coordinator, Family Emergency Accommodation Townsville
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
AND HOMELESSNESS
The most current research on the effects of intimate
partner violence (domestic violence) on women was released by VicHealth in
June 2004. This groundbreaking study yielded shocking results. The
findings in this research show that intimate partner violence constitutes
almost 9% of the disease burden in women up to the age of 45 years. This
form of violence, which often causes homelessness, is responsible for more
ill-health and premature death than any other risk factors. Intimate
partner violence is very common and has severe and persistent effects. (VicHealth
2004).
Every day there are 100,000 Australians who are homeless
and 36,000 of these are children. Children account for 42% of all people
assisted by homeless services every day. 88% of these children are 12
years or younger. (AFHO – June 2004). SAAP services accommodated 53,800
children along with their guardian in 2002-2003. 67% of this support was
for children escaping domestic and family violence along with their
mother. (SAAP Annual Statistics).
From the statistics and the research there is no doubt that
domestic violence has a huge impact on the health and well being of
people, usually women and children, who find themselves in that situation
and can lead to a form of homelessness that it not easily recognised.
The very word ‘homeless’ often gives rise to a picture of
people sleeping rough, on the streets, in a clothing bin, etc. However
there is another type of homelessness and that is when women and children
cannot live in their own homes because of domestic violence. Essentially
these people have a home, but it is not safe. When a woman removes
herself and the children from the unsafe relationship in effect they
become homeless. Children are significantly affected by living in a family
where their mother is abused by their father and some times they are also
hurt by the same abuser. Children are also affected by the experience of
unstable and impoverished living conditions all too often leading to poor
health outcomes.
Our major service system response to domestic violence is
for the victim/s to leave the premises and go to a place of safety. This
raises a question about why the victim family leaves rather than the
abuser who has committed the crime. This is a still to be resolved issue.
When women are victims of violence and are forced to leave
the family home for the safety of themselves and the children, they face
many challenges, both long and short term, including housing issues. They
may have gone to a shelter or to friends or family at the time of the
initial crisis but then they will need to access longer term and
affordable housing. And this can be quite a problem. The lack of
affordable housing, the costs of accessing the housing, the dislocation
from family, friends and school etc all add up to housing stress.
Some women experience discrimination in accessing rental
housing, especially if it is a large family. Other women are prevented
from home ownership because the banks increasingly rely on two income
earners to service a mortgage and her income levels are likely to be too
low. Previous home ownership with the abuser can mean a woman is assessed
as having assets, thereby limiting her access to legal aid etc, and she
may have housing debt from the house she cannot live in. Other women are
faced with housing debt, because her partner has damaged or destroyed
their public housing home, thereby restricting her access to future public
housing.
Women and children who become homeless because of violence
face many issues, their health and housing outcomes are poor and their
future health and well being relies on being able to access a whole range
of services and support. Our society needs to ensure that we continue to
provide a safety net of income, health, housing and welfare based on need.
We must take responsibility for those who are the most vulnerable in our
community and insist that our governments do more for women and children
in these situations.
Pauline
Woodbridge, North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service
WOMEN, HOUSING AND
PRISON
Women in prison
constitute a cross section of groups that the
2003
Report on Women and Housing
identified
as ‘vulnerable’.
Housing issues are a pertinent concern for women in prison both in regards
to their living arrangements inside prison and also in regards to their
post-release accommodation options.
Generally, women in
prison are not serving long sentences. 84% are serving shorter than
2-year sentences with an average serving only 2.1 months. Despite this
short time frame, incarceration has a huge effect on women and their
families and inhibits their access to safe, secure and dignified
accommodation.
Once
incarcerated, women find themselves facing a difficult time that can be
both isolating and degrading. The State has a responsibility to women in
its care to ensure that human rights are not abused and our submission
argues that it has failed in this respect. The failure to guarantee
rights outlined in the
ICCPR,
and the Standard Minimum Rule for the Treatment of Prisoners affects the
quality of the accommodation offered to women in prison. In evaluating
the adequacy of prison as a housing option.
Accommodation Options
in Prison
Upon entry to Brisbane
Women’s Correctional Centre women receive a security classification and
this classification determines where they are accommodated inside. About
half of the women at any point are housed in maximum security units and
the other half in residential units. Once women receive a lower security
classification, they are eligible to move to a less structured facility,
pending availability. Within Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre there
is a facility for treatment of prisoners with mental health issues, the
Crisis Support Unit (CSU), and also a Detention Unit that is used for
punishment. The prison’s response to women who are risk of hurting
themselves or are suicidal are to be put on a CSU order. This is where
women are held in isolation within the maximum security prison. The
treatment she receives if she displays behaviour not favourable to prison
officers is through the use of handcuffs, body belts and being
accommodated in a rubber room for hours and days at a time.
The
isolation that women face inside prison demonstrates another problematic
aspect of women’s accommodation in prison. The isolation from community,
family and friends causes powerful emotional responses from women in
prison. This is especially the case for Indigenous women and for women
from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Because the right
to housing can be said include the aspects of accessibility and cultural
adequacy prison accommodation is inadequate.
Post
Release housing difficulties
Sisters Inside has
consistently encountered difficulty when assisting women to find stable
and appropriate housing options upon release from prison. Finding stable
and affordable accommodation is essential to the recovery of children, the
reunification of families, to stopping re-offending, to reducing
post-release mortality rates and to ensure that options exist beyond
returning to violent partners.
Through our work with
women who are about to be released and who have already been released
Sisters Inside has identified a series of issues that impact upon women
attempting to find suitable accommodation for themselves and their
children. Women in prison are likely to come from economically
disadvantaged backgrounds. This makes finding accommodation that is
affordable very difficult; For women eligible for public housing, waiting
lists are very long. Imprisonment also effects the waiting list.
Additionally, public housing is often only available as a short-term
option; Prison conditions make it hard for women to look for suitable
accommodation in preparation for their release date; Women coming from
prison often face discrimination when looking for accommodation.
All of
these factors contribute to the difficulty women in prison face when
looking for suitable accommodation upon their release Many women are
forced to move numerous times upon their release from prison. Forced
evictions due to the discovery of incarceration and other perils outlined
above all mean that a woman released from prison can go through many
different accommodation placements in a short period of time. Stability
is found to be the most reliable predictor of return to prison and the
more often women move, the more likely they are to return.
Conclusion
Women in prison and their
children can be seen as having many unmet needs in regards to accessing
adequate accommodation inside prison and post release. The extreme
disadvantage that faces this group of women prior to incarceration is only
compounded by time spent in prison.
Upon
release, women who have been incarcerated are even more disadvantaged than
before their incarceration and have still fewer appropriate housing
options. This results in inappropriate housing, multiple forced
relocations, increased poverty and family breakdown.
Excerpt from article written for the UN on women, accommodation and prison
by Debbie Kilroy from Sisters Inside.
ABSENCES FROM HOME
FOR MEDICAL REASONS
The Department of
Housing recognises that tenants may need to be absent from their homes
temporarily to receive health-related treatment. Some of these reasons may
be to: stay in hospital; undergo rehabilitation in a treatment facility;
or stay in a respite care facility.
Do
I need to let the Department know I will be away?
Yes. You are required
to tell the Department if you will be absent from your property for more
than two weeks. This is a condition of your residential tenancy agreement.
Advising the Department you will be away ensures the Department will know
your property has not been abandoned.
Do
I need to seek approval for an absence?
Yes. You need to seek
approval from the Department if you are going to be absent for any period
between three and 12 months. You will need to complete a ‘Request for
temporary absence from property’ form (PRH042). See the fact sheet
‘Temporary absence from your home’ (FactF4) for more information.
Please note:
Absences of more than 12 months will not be approved. If you need to be
absent for more than 12 months, contact your local Department of Housing
office.
Will my absence affect my tenancy with the Department?
In most cases, you
must continue to pay your normal rent, complete rent reviews and maintain
the property as required by your residential tenancy agreement. You should
consider asking a family member or a friend to take care of your home
during this time.
What if I have to pay hospital fees or other treatment fees?
Fees are charged in
private hospitals and other treatment facilities. Queensland public
hospitals charge fees according to current health related legislation for
patients who need long-term (more than 35 days) or nursing home type care
in a: public hospital; multipurpose health facility; psychogeriatric unit;
extended treatment unit; or State residential care facility. These fees
can be a significant proportion of a Centrelink income - from 66.67% to
87.5%. It is important to ask the staff from your Health Service District
the date these fees will commence.
Could the Health Service District waive or reduce these fees?
The Health Service
District may waive or reduce fees when there is evidence of financial
hardship.
What if my fees are not waived or reduced by the Health Service District?
If you have requested
a waiver or reduction of fees from your Health Service District and it is
not approved, contact your local Department of Housing office. The
Department will consider reducing your rent for a period of time to assist
you.
What if I am treated in a private hospital or private treatment facility?
If you are treated in
a private hospital or treatment facility and charged fees, contact your
local Department of Housing office to discuss your circumstances. The
Department may be able to reduce your rent for a period of time if you are
experiencing financial hardship.
If
the Department reduces my rent, how much will I have to pay?
If you live on your
own, your rent may be reduced to minimum rent for a period of time. If
there are other people in your household, your income may not be included
when the household rent is calculated.
Please
contact your local Department of Housing office for more information.
QWHN News - April/May 2003
QWHN News - September/October
2003
QWHN News - December/January
2003/04
QWHN News - March 2004
QWHN News - February 2005
* NEW *
QWHN News - June 2005
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