Homeless women earn significantly less: study
WELLINGTON: A new study has found women who are homeless earn significantly less income and rely more on government support than men who are homeless.
The University of Otago research analysed data of nearly 400 men and women who were homeless before being rehoused by Housing First services.
It found homeless women were more likely than men to be younger, Maori and sole parents.
Dr Brodie Fraser, a research fellow at the university’s He Kainga Oranga — the Housing and Health Research Programme, authored the report.
Dr Fraser argued it was critical to know the difference between homeless men and women.
‘‘To address the issue to the best of our ability, we need to know more about the different experiences of different groups, and that includes women.
‘‘In New Zealand, about 50% of our overall homeless population are women, which is internationally quite rare.
‘‘It’s really important for us that we know what these experiences are, and what these women are going through.
‘‘It really just shows our benefits aren’t high enough. They need to be higher, they need to be easier to access.
‘‘These are really vulnerable people and their children deserve the best possible start in life that they can, but they’re clearly not getting that if their mums are so stressed out and needing that wraparound housing support,’’ Dr Fraser said.
The team was in the process of examining the data from when women began to interact with Housing First, and what impact that had.
Dr Fraser said early indications showed ‘‘Housing First is really useful in helping to lessen the number of interactions with government services’’.
‘‘As well as income support, we really need that wraparound housing support, and mental healthcare, and physical healthcare as well.
‘‘There’s no one solution that’s going to fix the problem, but I think we need all these government agencies to work together to support people who are experiencing homelessness.’’ — RNZ