Hapai Public: Jo Cribb and Tanita Bidois on barriers and solutions to women’s homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand

Ngā ara ki te kāinga: Understanding barriers and solutions to women’s homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Recent research reveals that 50,000 New Zealand women face severe housing deprivation. Tanita Bidois and Jo Cribb highlight critical policy gaps and advocate for gendered policy solutions to this invisible homelessness. 

“Being able to have a home where everyone can come and feel comfortable and safe” seems something we would want for all members of our community. These were an interviewee’s words, taken from the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness’s 2024 research report: Ngā ara ki te kāinga: Understanding barriers and solutions to women’s homelessness in Aotearoa. However, according to 2023 census data, for around 50,000 women experiencing severe housing deprivation, it’s just a dream.

Women make up around 52 per cent of New Zealand’s homeless population. This is a higher proportion than the countries we compare ourselves to. For example, in Canada women only account for 27 per cent of those experiencing homelessness.  

Wāhine Māori are over-represented in homeless statistics, with over one-third of homeless women in New Zealand identifying as Māori (see page 8 and data page 18 of the linked report). For older women, homelessness rates are rising rapidly. The limited data on single mothers also shows they experience a disproportionate impact of homelessness.  

Unlike men experiencing homelessness, women are less likely, for safety reasons, to sleep rough. They will couch surf, sleep in cars, or sleep in A&E waiting rooms, or be forced to stay with intimate partners they may not wish to be with. As such, they are often invisible to services provided for people experiencing homelessness. Their invisibility has been exacerbated by the absence of gendered housing data and a paucity of research into women’s housing experiences.  

That our poor record in women’s homelessness has been unnoticed was the impetus for the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness. Established by five women leaders in the housing sector in 2023, the Coalition has three aims: to amplify the voices of women experiencing homelessness; to ensure that housing policy and provision are guided by a gendered lens; and to generate research evidence on effective solutions for women’s homelessness.  

He Awa Whiria research 

In late 2024, the Coalition released Ngā Ara ki te Kāinga: Understanding Barriers and Solutions to Women’s Homelessness; a study providing gendered insights and solutions for policymakers into women’s homelessness. The research incorporated both qualitative and quantitative data, using the He Awa Whiria (braided river) research approach, which weaves both data sources together, much like a braided river. 

The findings revealed a stark disconnect between the realities of women’s homelessness and the frameworks that inform policy and service delivery. The report identified gender-specific drivers and solutions to women’s homelessness and called for an urgent gendered policy approach.

The study identified interconnected factors driving women’s homelessness, with trauma, mental illness, domestic and sexual violence, and motherhood as central themes. The fear of having children removed by Oranga Tamariki often forces women to make difficult decisions about where they live. 

The study highlighted that homeless women endure unique gendered challenges, including personal hygiene, pregnancy, domestic and sexual violence, and childcare. Trauma, including childhood abuse and the removal of children, is both a cause and a consequence of homelessness, contributing to ongoing mental illness and addiction. 

The study found that the over-representation of wāhine Māori in women’s homelessness is rooted in the ongoing impacts of colonisation, experiencing systemic discrimination across ethnicity and gender. Additionally, the report found that single mothers and older women face intersecting barriers compounded by discrimination in the housing market, insufficient income support, and a lack of suitable, affordable housing. Long-standing gender norms, pay inequities, and worsening health conditions mean more older women are facing financial hardship and homelessness after divorce or becoming widowed. 

Analysis of Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) data for the cohort of women experiencing homelessness further found that while women experiencing homelessness have few criminal convictions, they experience high levels of victimisation. This cohort was also found to have unmet mental health needs and accessed fewer mental health services compared with all women. As an example, over the last three years, 18 per cent of women experiencing homelessness accessed pharmaceutical prescriptions for mental health compared with 27 per cent of all women.  

The research also found that government policy, such as emergency housing, often perpetuates harms and risks associated with women’s homelessness, placing women and children in unsafe living environments. The absence of gender-disaggregated data collection and the invisible nature of women’s homelessness (driven by gendered safety risks associated with sleeping rough) means the true scale and nature of women’s homelessness remains obscured. 

Despite gaps in policies and data collection, several housing and social service providers, such as the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust and Auckland City Mission, are offering homeless women support and solutions that work. Effective providers address the complex and intersecting needs of homeless women, including mental health, addiction, domestic violence, and childcare needs alongside housing supports. Providers also recognise a one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective, and they work closely with women to ensure solutions are tailored and culturally appropriate. 

Policy implications 

The research demonstrated the gendered experience of homelessness. Women shared experiences of homelessness through the lens of their personal safety, pregnancy, and parenting.

To ensure that policies aimed at reducing the impact of homelessness work for the entire homeless population, the needs of at least 50 per cent of that population must be included in the analysis. To achieve this, there will need to be an increased focus on gender-disaggregated data and a greater investment in research, monitoring, and evaluation through a gendered lens. 

Ring-fencing specific initiatives focusing on the needs of homeless women will also be needed to ensure systems and processes do not continue to render them invisible and default to the needs of men. The unique challenges faced by wāhine Māori, Pacific women, older women, single mothers, and other marginalised groups need to be factored into housing policy development. Ngā Ara ki te Kāinga went as far as to recommend a national strategy to reduce women’s homelessness.  

The research also demonstrated the complex issues women experiencing homelessness face, that is, intimate partner violence, mental health challenges and issues accessing mental health services, addiction, and the challenges of single parenting without secure housing. To continue to view their homelessness in isolation from other social services will mean continued failure to address their complex needs and failure to achieve outcomes across any of these policy domains. 

The principles of the social investment approach, with its focus on outcomes for people and tailored services, are relevant here. Stronger partnerships between agencies, community providers, Māori, and iwi should be established to deliver coordinated, holistic support for homeless women. 

However, as the research showed, the system has a long way to go to provide the wraparound support those interviewed needed, let alone the much-needed focus on preventing women and their children from becoming homeless.

Revisiting the quote from one of the women interviewed for the research that opened this article, the outcome needed is clear: safe, comfortable, stable homes. To achieve this, those working within agencies need to continually question whether what they are designing and delivering will work for both men and women, and what can be achieved within their spheres of influence to focus on outcomes for people, not outcomes for silos.

Jo Cribb had two decades working on social and community policy issues, with roles including the Deputy Children’s Commissioner and Chief Executive of the Ministry for Women. She currently runs her own consultancy focused on governance, coaching, and gender issues. She is the Chair of the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust and co-founder of the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness. Her PhD in Public Policy focused on the government not-for-profit provider contracting relationship. 

Tanita Bidois (Waikato, Ngāti Ranginui) is a Māori & Indigenous Studies lecturer at the University of Canterbury and works as a Māori evaluator. She was the lead qualitative researcher and author of Ngā Ara ki te Kāinga: Understanding Barriers and Solutions to Women’s Homelessness in Aotearoa. She previously worked at Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu as Senior Policy Adviser, supporting the commissioning of Whānau Ora in the South Island for almost four years. Her postgraduate studies have focused on Māori gender and sexuality and the experiences of wāhine Māori.