International Women’s Day: Turning promises into progress to end women’s homelessness

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On International Women’s Day (8 March), we celebrate the incredible women across Australia - our mothers, daughters, colleagues, and those we serve - whose strength and resilience inspire us daily.

At Mission Australia, we are proud to support women overcoming challenges in housing and life, and we remain committed to helping all women thrive. As one of Australia’s largest community services and housing providers, women are also the backbone of Mission Australia, playing a critical role in delivering community housing and homelessness support on the frontline.

But as we celebrate, we must also confront the reality: too many women still face barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential. This year’s UN theme, “March Forward: It's time to turn promises into progress,” calls us to move beyond intentions and take real steps to create change.

The reality is: too many women become homeless in Australia.

Older women, particularly those over the age of 55, are one of the fastest-growing groups facing homelessness in Australia. Over the past few years, Mission Australia has seen a sharp rise in women in this age group seeking help - more than doubling between 2020 and 2024. These women, many of whom have spent their lives working, raising families, or caring for others, now find themselves vulnerable to housing instability due to inadequate retirement savings, lack of homeownership, health issues, job loss, or relationship breakdowns which can quickly push them into financial hardship and homelessness. One of our fundraising campaigns is dedicated to supporting these older women, with every donation helping us find them a safe place to call home and make a meaningful difference in their lives.

Domestic and family violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women. In the past four years, the number of women escaping violence and turning to our services has also more than doubled. Every day, women face the agonising choice between staying in unsafe situations or risking homelessness. The rising cost of living, the shortage of housing that is truly affordable, and insufficient income support make this choice even harder.

As CEO of Mission Australia, I’m committed to advocating for gender equality and fighting for policies that address the specific needs of women - particularly in housing, homelessness and poverty. Advocating for these changes sits alongside the work that our services and housing teams do daily to directly support women who need a safe and secure home. We need to invest in one million new social and affordable homes over the next 20 years and create a $500 million Homelessness Prevention Transformation Fund to shift our system from reacting to crises to proactively preventing homelessness. We also need to raise income support payments to at least $82 per day so women can live with dignity and security.

At Mission Australia, we strive towards gender equality. While we’re proud of our progress - our gender pay gap is now 3.3%, down from 4% in 2023 - we know there’s more work to be done. We’re committed to increasing women in leadership, fostering flexible work cultures, and supporting women throughout their careers. Our more recent initiatives include reproductive leave, increased family and domestic violence leave, and strengthened measures against workplace harassment. This year, we’re launching new initiatives to move closer to true gender equality in our workplace.

This International Women’s Day, let’s march beyond words and take action. Every woman deserves safe, secure, and affordable housing - a foundation for dignity, independence and opportunity. Together, we can make this vision a reality for all women and everyone across Australia.

Sharon Callister
CEO Mission Australia
@sharoncallister