For many older women in Australia, secure housing remains an elusive dream. My own journey, shaped by decades of renting, highlights the stark realities of a market that prioritises wealth generation over tenant security and affordability.
Born in the mid-1950s, my first home was a small van beside Myall Creek in Queensland. When I was still a baby, my parents secured public housing through sheer determination. My mother, pregnant and desperate, refused to leave her local MP’s office without keys to a government-owned house. That act of defiance granted my family 17 years in stable, affordable housing. This was part of a postwar commitment to providing homes for working-class Australians – in an era when public housing was considered an essential service.
However, my experience as an adult renting in the private market has been vastly different. After sharing houses in Brisbane as a young professional, I eventually married and had children, continuing to rent while studying and working in the not-for-profit sector. Despite my postgraduate qualifications, my income as a community worker remained lower than my mother’s in her role as a government-employed cleaner. My divorce left me with no assets, minimal child support, and no superannuation (it was not yet compulsory).
In the mid-1990s, the federal government began shifting away from public housing. Under John Howard, tax concessions encouraged private investment in rental properties, yet regulation remained minimal. Today, around 30% of all residential rental properties are owned by investors, but this system is designed to maximise their wealth rather than provide a secure rental service for tenants.
Over the past 70 years, my personal contribution to landlords through rent is modestly estimated at $900,000 across 14 properties – nearly a million dollars invested, not in my own security but in the wealth accumulation of landlords. Had those funds been directed toward a mortgage or an alternative housing model, I would have been able to secure stable housing for life. Instead I, like many others, remain caught in the rent trap – continuously funnelling money into a system that offers little in return, particularly if you rent at the lower-cost end of the market.
Many women of my generation attempted to climb the property ladder but were stuck in a vicious cycle. They have bought and sold multiple homes, often due to life circumstances such as divorce, caregiving responsibilities or financial instability. Each sale left them with fewer assets until home ownership became unattainable. These women represent the “missing middle”– too wealthy to qualify for public housing but too financially strained to afford long-term private rentals or access mortgage finance due to ageist lending practices.
The aged pension is designed based on the assumption of home ownership, leaving renters – particularly older women – without adequate financial support. Many must deplete their savings within a few years to afford rising rents. This leaves them in a dire position, often facing homelessness or enduring years-long waits for public and community housing, where eligibility criteria have become increasingly restrictive.
The structural inequalities baked into Australia’s housing system disproportionately harm women, particularly those like me who have spent years in unpaid caregiving roles or in lower-paid, insecure employment. Other factors that contribute to women’s housing insecurity include the gender pay gap, financial exclusion, and domestic violence and financial abuse – many women have lived their lives without legal protection from such abuse for decades. Long-term injuries including brain damage mean some women spend long periods of time in recovery, trying to remain invisible so their perpetrators cannot find them.
Policies designed to encourage home ownership among younger generations fail to address the growing crisis among older Australians who will never own property. As a society, we owe older women more than a precarious rental market that drains their savings and forces them into homelessness.
Governments must build more social housing and introduce stronger rental protections. They could also invest in affordable housing models such as tenant-managed and cooperative housing initiatives that provide secure housing alternatives outside the speculative market. Targeted financial support, such as adjusting pension rates and rental assistance to reflect the realities of older renters, and changes to the taxation system to make the system fairer for women who have lived with gender inequality over their lifetimes, could help address this crisis. And governments could address older women’s specific economic disadvantages through targeted support, such as loan (including equity) schemes and housing grants.
For generations, women have contributed unpaid labour to support families, workplaces and communities. As they age, they deserve safe, affordable homes where they can continue to participate in their communities. Without urgent reform, more older women will find themselves at risk of homelessness – an unacceptable outcome for a country that once prioritised housing as a public good.
Maggie Shambrook is a founding participant of the Housing Older Women Movement
