Homeless Women Nobody Wants To See – Ali MC

“The fact that I don’t have a permanent home is directly linked to domestic violence, because I left home,” says Naomi, 47, who asked to be identified only by her name. Naomi, an Aboriginal woman who grew up in central Melbourne, loves to talk and her energy and assertiveness hide years of hardship.

Today he lives in Queensland, Australia’s northernmost state, and describes in a long phone call his experiences as a homeless and victim of family violence. “Domestic violence was normal for me, because I’ve seen it since I was a child,” she explains bluntly. Growing up with her Aboriginal mother and Irish father, she lived amidst severe domestic violence, often fueled by alcohol. “Mom – don’t get me wrong, I love her soul – but as a young girl I just didn’t understand her, she was really crazy,” she says sadly. “He got drunk and freaked out. She and dad kept going until they exploded with alcoholic rage ”.

Naomi didn’t know this at the time, but her mother belonged to the so-called stolen generation of indigenous children forcibly taken from their families, and she was raised on a mission run by non-indigenous nuns. Aboriginal children often suffered severe abuse in these institutions, where the living conditions were harsh and the punishments very severe.

The pain caused by the separation from the family and the estrangement from their culture and their heritage has provoked in the “stolen generations” a trauma that often resulted in the abuse of alcohol and drugs, domestic violence and homeless life, with a very strong impact on next generation.

Domestic violence and housing shortages
After her parents split, Naomi found herself homeless at 14 and lived in several hostels around Melbourne.

“I have worked in many factories in Richmond. I found jobs to support myself with, ”he says. “But I wasn’t old enough to rent a house, so I had to live in these hostels or look for makeshift accommodations in other people’s homes.”

He describes the hostels as “always filthy, full of people of all kinds, especially the elderly. I was very young. I was afraid”.

Stories like Naomi’s are not uncommon in Australia. In fact, domestic violence is the main cause of homelessness in the country and women represent almost half of the people who live like this. According to statistics, more than a third of women over the age of 15 have experienced physical, psychological or sexual violence by their current partner or an ex. Due to this threat to their safety, women like Naomi are forced to leave home, often with their children.

Homeless men often sleep outdoors, but women with these conditions frequently have children who are dependent on them. This prompts them to look for safer accommodation than the road, for example by asking friends for hospitality, in lodgings or guesthouses or even settling in a car.

Naomi, who had the first of her three children at the age of 22, has experienced a series of violent relationships which, added to her experiences as a child, have led her to consider domestic violence a normal part of life.
“I thought violence was the norm. At some point you just get used to it, ”he says. She often had to run away from home without warning with her children and go to stay with friends or relatives, rent beds in other people’s homes or return to live temporarily in hostels.

“I also thought it was normal to have to pack up and move to another place,” he says. “I did it for a long time with the two older children, then at a certain point I said to myself ‘no, this is not good’, it just wasn’t right”.

Structural problems
According to experts, public opinion has an inaccurate perception about homeless women, as women who live like this are often “invisible”.

“Women experience this condition very differently,” says Anna Paris, operational director of Sacred heart mission, a Melbourne-based NGO that offers a range of services to homeless people, including the distribution of meals and a safe place to stay. women. “You don’t see many sleeping on the street, in workplaces or similar places, and they are less likely to settle into boarding houses.”

“It is often thought that homeless women are a very low percentage, but in reality we know that they represent a much higher proportion, almost 50 percent. However, the way in which the phenomenon presents itself and the way in which it is measured are different ”.

According to Paris, in addition to domestic violence and trauma, the housing shortage in the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is located, also has a strong impact on the phenomenon. “People are turning to homeless services every day, but many of these problems are structural,” he explains. “There is a severe shortage of affordable housing, especially for single women, whether they receive benefits or not.”

In 2015, the work of a commission on family violence set up by the government of the state of Victoria concluded with 227 recommendations. One of these recommendations referred to the need to give priority to women victims of family violence in the allocation of social housing, a commitment that the government aims to maintain by announcing the construction of new social housing complexes.

Paris commends the government for the prevention policies demonstrated in combating domestic violence and the homelessness that can ensue, but is convinced that there is still a lot to do and that often women end up returning to a violent environment only for lack of alternatives. “Even those who are placed in a group that is given priority can wait years before being assigned a house,” he says.

A condition determined by gender
Sam Sowerwine is a lawyer leading the homeless response team at Justice connect, a community legal counseling service that addresses a variety of social issues, providing marginalized and disadvantaged people with access to the legal system and a education to legality. In her opinion, “the lack of visibility makes it much more difficult for women to quantify the experience of homelessness. It is certainly underestimated. And then there is a strong concern for safety ”.

The prevention project implemented by the organization aims to ensure that victims of domestic and family violence can be housed in safe places. It offers an integrated service that not only assists women legally, but connects them with other social services such as psychological counseling or those dealing with the allocation of social housing.

The team provides lawyers and social workers who provide a “tailor-made” service. Sam explains that the combination of a lack of public housing and overpriced private rentals means that women cannot find adequate accommodation. “Once they have fallen into homelessness, it is much more difficult for women to have access to adequate and safe housing,” she says. “And that has a huge impact on their lives and those of their children.”

The fact that many of them continue to have to look after children on their own after the end of a relationship creates additional economic pressures, especially with regard to the possibility of renting a house and the rising cost of living.

Other elements of economic pressure are inequalities in the workplace – women are paid less than men – and a lack of savings. Not surprisingly, the stress of economic insecurity, breakup of relationships, responsibility for childcare, and domestic violence are often inevitably exacerbated by mental distress.

“They are thus trapped in a vicious circle of difficulties in finding housing and temporary accommodation resulting from the lack of more stable housing conditions,” says Sam.

Cases of domestic violence are even more frequent for Aboriginal women like Naomi. On average, indigenous women are 35 more likely to be hospitalized due to episodes of domestic or family violence than non-indigenous women. However, in recent years Naomi has managed to get her life back in hand, moving to Queensland to get away from her violent past and focus on raising children in a healthy environment.

He also works in the community legal aid sector, where he hopes to be able to change the lives of other indigenous people. She is dedicated to healing the traumas of women who have experienced violence and is convinced of the need for initiatives in which women victims of domestic violence are given the opportunity to tell their stories to their torturers in prison.

“Those who commit this violence are part of our own community, so we cannot lock them up and forget about them. Eventually they will return home, so what will happen then? And what is our role as Aboriginal women in this process? Wouldn’t it be better if these men – our men – listened to the direct testimony of the woman who was harmed? And they say ‘this is how you made me feel, this is what happens. You do not harm only us, you also harm our children, you harm our community ‘”.

“We are the women, the mothers, the aunts,” she says. “We women are part of this healing process.”

(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)