Seeking security

Monica* is having difficulties trying to find permanent accommodation. I have collected her words. Words I hear every time I ask if she has found anywhere to live yet. She comes to our centre every week to take part in exercise programs and is determined to live as independently as she can.

I can hear the anxiety in her voice as she speaks. Monica is an extremely shy person, and is her mother’s carer though they do not live together. Monica sees her mother every day, takes her out, helps in her garden and does her shopping. For this reason she would like to live as closely as possible to her mother but has been unable to find affordable housing, even in this socially disadvantaged area.

Monica lives modestly so I’m guessing she is very typical of an older woman who has never owned her own home and now her working life is behind her and she finds she is being priced out of the rental market. While Monica has been happy to talk to me and volunteers about the difficulties she is having trying to find permanent accommodation she is reluctant to speak about it to anyone else. However she has given permission for me to pass on her words to you.

– Barbara Malcolm, Older Women's Network

“It’s so hard to find rental accommodation that is in any way decent. I watch the papers all the time and have my name with lots of agents, but they don’t care.
You should see some of the places I am offered, they are disgusting. Some of them should be condemned – they are hovels.

"The unit I live in is in a very old block and the owner put it on the market about two years ago but no one will buy it. If it is sold it will probably be knocked down and new units built. I have no written lease and may have to leave at any time. I worry all the time that I will have to leave and will have nowhere to go. It’s an awful worry and every day I am anxious and thinking about not finding a clean safe place to live.

"I’ve been shown places that you would not put your dog in, old filthy places, decrepit, smelly, they are uninhabitable yet they ask people to pay to live there. It’s disgusting. Rust riddled baths and you should see the kitchens. Everywhere you look. Broken things. It’s depressing, thinking about what is happening.

I have my name down for public housing, but because I have a place to live I have to wait until somewhere is available. I know there are many people who are worse off than me, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. I worry all the time and think I’ll never find a home where I will be safe. I live in a nightmare.

What am I looking for? My dream? A place that I will be able to keep clean, it can be small, I’ll always live alone. Neighbours who will be decent people and will allow me privacy and respect me as a person. There are lots of good people around; I would like to live with good people around me. I would like to feel secure and know that as long as I pay my rent regularly and look after the place, you know, not breaking things or doing things that annoy other tenants, I can live there and not have to move because the place may be sold or the owner will put the rent up.

*name has been changed