August 2024 pānui
Kia ora koutou
We are pleased to be able to bring you a new tohu / logo and new LinkedIn page for the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness (CEWH), with updates to our website soon to follow. We will be using these as tools in service of continuing to update and engage our community, and to publish our newly-commissioned research, submissions, and positions. Keep an eye on your inbox - you will be seeing us monthly from here on as we grow this movement for change you have all been so generous in supporting for the past year.
Please encourage your friends and colleagues to sign up to this newsletter on our website!
LUNCH AND LEARN
Come along and join us for what promises to be a great lunch and learn webinar next Friday 9 August from 1-2PM.
Our flyer is below and you can register at this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcO-gqjsiGdG8CTPeyR6GZCEaGlLb5vSA#/registration
NEWS AND VIEWS
We have been working hard to continue highlighting what is happening for women. We were fortunate to be a part of the cover story in The Listener about the realities for women coming into retirement. You can read the articles on The NZ Herald (but if you can afford it, we recommend picking up a hard copy of The Listener too).
There is a gender blindness. It makes me wild. - Helen Robinson, Auckland City Missioner.
Our Convenor, Vic Crockford also appeared on Bernard Hickey’s Kākā podcast as part of his weekly wrap, ‘The Hoon’. She talked about how critical it is that we recognise the needs that women have right at the design stage of our policies, funding, and service design. She also talked about the mindset shift we need to get real about lifting people out of poverty and housing insecurity.
The Abuse in State Care report has rightly received wall-wall coverage the past couple of weeks and it has caused broader conversations about the way we care for our tamariki as a society and the role that state care has and continues to play in creating pathways into homelessness.
Previous CEWH webinar sensation, Nikki Hurst of the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services was interviewed by John Campbell. He asked her how safe our children are now really?
Survivors William Wilson and Karl Mokaraka share their stories of abuse in state care with 'Alakihihifo Vailala of Pacific Media Network. They shed light on the cycle of abuse that leads kids to hurt kids but also on reconciliation and healing.
Elsewhere, Te Whāriki Mana Wāhine o Hauraki - Hauraki Women’s Refuge has released important research into the connections between domestic violence and housing poverty showing that there is a direct link in their region. The report finds that we need compassionate policies rooted in women’s experiences. One of the researchers gave a powerful quote to Te Ao Māori News, in full below.
"Lead researcher Paora Moyle says the report shows “what we need to do, step by step, to make that difference, because until women are free, none of us are free.
“There is no health here, and it’s no longer acceptable for the wahine, who are at the bottom of the barrel, to keep on getting treated the way that they do and blamed for the mahi tukino that they experience and turned away, rejected from possible housing.”
You can read the research here.
You can read articles about this impactful research here and here.
In Australia, housing poverty for older women is also an escalating issue, with this article detailing the precarious situation, Mary found herself in at the age of 71.
“A recent government report says that 40% of renters on low income are now at risk of joining that cohort.
That’s what happened to Mary. Pushed out of her flat last year when her landlord opted to lease it for short-term stays, she couldn’t find anywhere affordable on her state pension.
Her husband can’t help - he’s in a care home with Alzheimer's disease.”
POLICY AND POLITICAL INSIGHTS
Funding cuts are making their impact felt around the sector, including in areas that impact women experiencing homelessness - food, financial wellbeing support, and - of course - housing providers.
CEWH has heard anecdotal evidence of how the operationalization of housing policies is impacting providers on the ground, including in emergency housing. Older women in particular are already largely invisible to the housing system and with the government’s public directive to prioritise those in emergency motels, CEWH is concerned women coming straight from private rentals or course surfing who may have secured social housing previously will be cut out.
It is an issue we are watching closely. If you have examples of where the current housing policy is impacting women, please get in touch with vic@cewh.org.
More broadly, the repeal of 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, which bound Oranga Tamariki to a practical commitment to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, directly after the Abuse in State Care report, coupled with the impending introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill both go against CEWH’s position - enshrined in our strategy - that a focus on redress for wāhine Māori including through housing policies and funding benefits us all.
Thank you all for your continued support. We look forward to seeing you on our webinar.
He iti te mokoroa, nāna i kati te kahikatea
The grub may be small, but it cuts through the kahikatea
Vic, Helen, Jo, Caroline, and Jill
