The Guardian Opinion article by Maggie Shambrook – a founding participant of the Housing Older Women Movement.
For many older women in Australia, secure housing remains an elusive dream. My own journey, shaped by decades of renting, highlights the stark realities of a market that prioritises wealth generation over tenant security and affordability.
Born in the mid-1950s, my first home was a small van beside Myall Creek in Queensland. When I was still a baby, my parents secured public housing through sheer determination. My mother, pregnant and desperate, refused to leave her local MP’s office without keys to a government-owned house. That act of defiance granted my family 17 years in stable, affordable housing. This was part of a postwar commitment to providing homes for working-class Australians – in an era when public housing was considered an essential service.
However, my experience as an adult renting in the private market has been vastly different. After sharing houses in Brisbane as a young professional, I eventually married and had children, continuing to rent while studying and working in the not-for-profit sector. Despite my postgraduate qualifications, my income as a community worker remained lower than my mother’s in her role as a government-employed cleaner. My divorce left me with no assets, minimal child support, and no superannuation (it was not yet compulsory).
