Did you know that the Toowong Women’s Homelessness Service, an Anglicare organisation, has been supporting thousands of women who are rebuilding their lives after experiencing homelessness?
Assisting women over 18 years old, the Toowong Women’s Homelessness Service provides temporary accommodation for parents, pregnant mums, or those working towards reunification. The help offered also creates an equitable future as the women rediscover their self-worth to motivate their improvement in life.
The team at the holistic service facility teaches the women to develop positive parenting skills or to sustain their tenancies by following a trauma-informed recovery-oriented, strengths-based case management framework. For a lot of these women, it’s the very first time they find themselves on a lease.
Anglicare’s Community properties open the opportunity for homeless women to have access to affordable housing for up to six months, alongside continued support and case management as they wait for a new home.
“We provide them with a place to stay as they have some stability and someone to work with who understands the challenges that they might go through,” Anglicare Women’s Homelessness Service Manager Carol Birrell said.
“An important part of our role is supporting people while they are waiting for housing because it is hard for people to wait and not know where they’ll be living, or what space and location they have to build their life around in terms of connecting with doctors or psychologists.”
The Toowong Women’s Homelessness Service also runs the Women’s Early Intervention Service which is an outreach program designed at assisting at-risk women and to help connect them with vital support services.
Ms Birrell said homelessness is such a complex issue which can spiral into a domino effect.
“The reality is that we’ve had women here that have had jobs and rentals and it can sometimes only take an event in their life which challenges them to reach out to services to seek support, and it’s not necessarily a loss of property or it could be a loss of property or something else, but that might not be the first thing,” Ms Birrell said.
“It’s like the chicken or the egg. Which one comes first? Is it the issues that were going on in that property or relationship or mental health? What is the reason? It’s not always the loss of property, but it might end in a loss of property, but that might not be the first thing.”
In observance of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2023, Ms Birrell said the theme of embracing equity resonated with her and her team as it’s all about supporting those who are most vulnerable and ensuring they have the same opportunities as everyone else regardless of their background and upbringing.
“I think the significant thing Anglicare has done for women is that we have identified the need to do more for women and it’s about women working with women and trying to see them in a better position in life,” Ms Birrell said.
Learn more about Toowong Women’s Homelessness Service by visiting Anglicare’s official site.
Published 8 March 2023