The YWCA of Australia also used the day to focus their attention on the female face of the housing crisis in Australia. Across Australia 44,000 women and girls ‘couch surf’ each night because they have no place to call home. Housing is making the news for all the wrong reasons in Australia and often the female face of the housing crisis has been ignored.

”Women become homeless for many reasons: most commonly their homelessness is caused because they are forced to flee a violent partner. But women are also increasingly forced out of their homes by hikes in rental rates. Women are also finding it harder and harder to find housing. Single mothers and their kids are rejected by real estate agents who don’t want to rent their properties to ’women on welfare’”, says Caroline Lambert, Executive Director of the YWCA of Australia.

YWCAs work across Australia to alleviate the housing crises that women and men, girls and boys experience every day. In Victoria, NSW, the ACT, Queensland and the NT, YWCAs provide crisis, short-term, medium-term and long-term accommodation.