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Homelessness Is Gendered. The Response Should Be Too.

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Australia’s homelessness system is at breaking point, and it is women and gender diverse people who keep falling through the cracks.

Australia’s housing and homelessness systems are failing women and gender diverse people, with responses that are ineffective, costly, and too often, harmful. By treating experiences of homelessness the same for everyone, housing policy overlooks how it is shaped by gender and other overlapping forms of disadvantage. As a result, women and gender diverse people are made invisible within policy and service responses.

When we fail to recognise the role of gender in homelessness, we entrench harm that could be prevented.

Women and gender diverse people are overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness, and numbers are rising. In 2021, women made up 44.1% of people experiencing homelessness and accounted for over 80% of the increase of people experiencing homelessness between 2016 and 2021 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021). In Victoria, 58% of people seeking assistance from Specialist Homelessness Services in 2023-2024 were women (Council to Homeless Persons, 2025).

Homelessness for women and gender diverse people is a direct consequence of gender inequality. Unequal pay and employment opportunities, alongside gendered expectations such as unpaid caregiving, increase women’s risk of homelessness. After facing a lifetime of structural gendered disadvantage, women over 55 are now the fastest growing group of people seeking homelessness support (Council to Homeless Persons, 2021). With lower lifetime earnings, time out of the workforce, and less superannuation compared to their male counterparts, many single older women are being pushed into poverty.

Family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women. Without safe housing, women and gender diverse people, and the children in their care, are often left exposed to further violence, exploitation, and trauma. Family violence and homelessness are inextricably linked, however, in 2020-21, only 3% of women fleeing family violence received long-term housing (Homelessness Australia, 2022). Despite the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 and initiatives like the Big Housing Build, funding for long-term support and sustainable housing continues to fall significantly short. For many, this means making an impossible choice between staying with a violent partner, or leaving and facing homelessness, two equally precarious and traumatising situations.

Invisible homelessness: when definitions erase experience

Definitions of homelessness are often shaped around men’s experiences, which can overlook the unique ways women and gender diverse people experience homelessness. This in turn influences how homelessness is measured and responded to, with policy and public discourse focusing on ‘rough sleeping’ and other forms of more visible homelessness as the default experience. But this only one part of the picture.

To stay safe, women and gender diverse people often conceal their homelessness or use strategies of invisibility, avoiding sleeping rough altogether (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, 2024). Instead, they may rely on couch surfing, short-term or temporary accommodation, or sleeping in their car. These strategies of concealment can be driven by fears of child removal, previous negative service experiences, stigma, or shame.

“I have been told that if I lose my private rental to make sure my car registration is paid because there will never be housing for me.” – Lived Experience Advisor to the Housing Safety Project

At the same time, limitations in how data is collected hide the true scale of need. Victim survivors of family violence are often counted separately to those experiencing homelessness, and women with children are frequently categorised as ‘families’ rather than individuals in their own right. This can mean official figures do not accurately reflect real experience. While Homelessness Australia reports that 45% of women presenting for homelessness support have experienced family violence (Homelessness Australia, 2024), this figure is likely much higher due to how overlapping experiences are recorded.

This undercount is further compounded by the exclusion of First Nations’ and gender diverse perspectives. First Nations definitions of home are routinely excluded from official data (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). This reflects the ongoing impact of colonial systems, which continue to shape how homelessness is understood and measured. Despite this, First Nations people are significantly overrepresented, accounting for 23% of people experiencing homelessness in 2021 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2021). Within this context, First Nations women face distinct and compounded risks shaped by both gender and systemic inequality.

Similarly, data collection methods are often confined to a rigid binary of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, rendering gender diverse people invisible. This is reinforced by the highly gendered nature of accommodation options, often leaving transgender, non-binary, or gender-fluid people without safe and appropriate housing altogether.

Put simply, the system is not recording homelessness accurately, and women and gender diverse people are not getting the high-quality, tailored, and trauma-informed support that they need.

When barriers stack up and disadvantage deepens

While there is limited Australian research examining the intersection of gender, disability and homelessness, people with disability are consistently overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness, experience poorer housing outcomes than the general population, and have been found to experience disadvantage across all housing indicators (Women With Disabilities Australia, 2023).

Likewise, women on temporary visas experience heightened precarity and often have limited access to informal support networks, increasing their risk of isolation (Australian Women Against Violence Alliance, 2018). Similarly, women in regional, rural and remote areas often have significantly less access to support and are more likely to experience hidden homelessness (Zufferey, C., Parkes, A., 2019).

These vulnerabilities are further intensified by the criminal justice system, where homelessness is both a cause and consequence of incarceration. More than half of women entering prison had experienced homelessness in the four weeks prior and 40% of those released exited into homelessness (Victorian Ombudsman, 2015). First Nations women and women from culturally diverse backgrounds are disproportionately impacted by these systems.

Across all these experiences, women and gender diverse people face compounding stigma and discrimination, from service systems, broader society, and internalised shame linked to homelessness. These intersecting forms of disadvantage are rarely acknowledged or accounted for in responses to homelessness.

The housing system’s binary and gender-neutral approach is inadequate. It actively erases those at the greatest risk of homelessness: people already navigating multiple forms of systemic inequality and discrimination.

Overburdened and ineffective: the system is failing women and gender diverse people

The homelessness system is under significant strain, with a critical lack of refuge accommodation and limited pathways to stable housing. In Melbourne, around half of people with ‘unmet housing need’ were families (Van den Nouwelant et al., 2022), and most of these families are led by women. These failures have serious consequences, including the heightened risk of First Nations women losing custody of their children (Centre for Innovative Justice, 2021).

Access to support is also frequently inadequate or denied altogether. In 2022-2023, women accounted for 65% of unassisted requests to Specialist Homelessness Services (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024). Too often women and gender diverse people are told they are not eligible, not at high enough risk, or ‘too complex’ to support. Even when support is offered, it can be unsafe, unsuitable, or unsustainable, particularly for those with intersecting forms of disadvantage.

Women and gender diverse people deserve better. They deserve systems and services that are fit-for-purpose and capable of meeting their needs. That means support that is trauma-informed, effective and dignifying along with access to housing that is safe, affordable, good-quality and connected to community.

We need investment in systems that prevent harm and provide healing and that requires recognition of the role gender plays in shaping homelessness. Homelessness is preventable – with political will and a commitment to designing and delivering solutions with women and gender diverse people with lived experience, we can end homelessness once and for all.

Find out more about the Women’s Housing Alliance’s Housing Safety Project.

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