Robin Dougherty, 81

I was born in Hornsby, NSW, and grew up in a normal household. At age 18 I got a job at Australian Consolidated Press because I’d always been interested in journalism, and I met Paul. When I was 21, we got married.

We started moving around the world for his work: Hong Kong, Japan, New York. He was in the press gallery in Canberra for a while, and then a press secretary in the Whitlam government. In the meantime, we had four daughters.

For twenty-something years we followed Paul’s work, but I felt I needed some stability. He was a fascinating man, and I enjoyed being married to him, but he was one of those journalists who would stay out until all hours. When three of the girls had moved out and I only had one at home, I left him.

We came back to Australia and I started doing PR and fundraising work in the not-for-profit sector. Paul and I remained very good friends and because I had our young daughter at home with me, he’d help out with rent and child support. But when Paul was 55, he died. That’s when my problems really started.

I had to pay rent and feed my daughter. I didn’t have a network of family and aunts and cousins. I was on my own all those years. I had to figure it out myself, working and always thinking, how can I make a lot of money? But it never really worked.

When my father died, I bought a little unit. I found out that as I paid money to the mortgage I could borrow it back. I thought, oh this is great, I’ve got some money. I’d never had money before. So the house was never paid off. I kept working until I was 70 and then I decided I really couldn’t keep working at the pace I was going.

One of my daughters was living in Bali so I moved there with a little superannuation and built a house in her backyard. I’d help look after her three children but after a few years I developed a back problem that needed surgery. I had to come home because I couldn’t get adequate medical care in Bali. When I started looking for somewhere to live in Sydney I realised there was nowhere I could afford on a pension.

A pension is about $400 a week. By the time I took out rent and what-haveyou, I had nothing. I’d stay with one daughter, but it was tricky. So I’d move on to another daughter. Then I’d move to my sister’s place. I felt like a bag lady. All the while I was thinking there must be a way to do it. I had no idea I was homeless. I just kept moving from place to place, and it was very stressful.

Every morning I would be on the phone trying to find somewhere to live. If you go to the government for affordable housing, there’s something like 10,000 people on the waitlist. I said to one of the workers one day, “What if it’s an emergency and I’ve just got nowhere?” She said, “Oh, that wait’s only two years.”

One day I was speaking to a woman from Uniting Care about affordable housing and she said, “You’re homeless.” I said, “I’m not homeless,” and she said, “Yes you are, you haven’t got a home. You’re moving from place to place. Eventually you’re going to run out of places. You’ve got nowhere to keep all of your stuff. Where do you put your stuff?”

Uniting Care organised a bedsit for me, and I’m really happy now but it’s a big problem. The process is very hard. For women who are my age and haven’t had the opportunity to learn how to navigate the bureaucracy and figure out how to get from A to B, it’s very difficult.

Women need to start thinking about what’s going to happen as they get older and work out a realistic plan. For a time I served as chair of the Older Women’s Network, and spoke to women and told my story. We’d say how can we prevent this? We’ve got to use imagination and ingenuity to prevent women falling into homelessness.