You won’t see their faces on campaign billboards. You won’t hear their stories in flashy election ads. But tonight – just like last night, and the night before – thousands of older Australian women will sleep in cars, crisis accommodation, or on a friend’s couch with nowhere to go.

They are the fastest-growing group of homeless Australians. Many are women who worked all their lives, raised children, cared for ageing parents, and now face the terrifying prospect of homelessness in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s.

They are not lazy or irresponsible. They are us – and we are failing them.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of women over 55 experiencing homelessness jumped by 31% between 2011 and 2016. By the 2021 Census, the figure had reached 7,325 – but even that is considered a gross undercount, because so many remain hidden: sleeping in cars, couch surfing, house-sitting, quietly slipping through the cracks.

Behind these numbers are familiar stories. Women who left the workforce to raise children. Who were paid less, promoted less, and now retire with half the superannuation of men. Women who spent years caring for others – only to be met with poverty in return.

And it’s not just that women are more likely to work in lower-paid, so-called ‘feminised’ industries – like aged care, childcare, and nursing – sectors essential to the functioning of society, yet consistently undervalued. It’s also that women continue to be paid less for doing the same work as men in the same industries. Across nearly every sector, from healthcare to education to law, women earn less than their male colleagues, even when qualifications, experience and roles are the same.

This isn’t about merit. It’s about bias – conscious and unconscious. It’s about promotion gaps, bonus gaps, and an entrenched belief that women’s work, time and labour are worth less.

The gender pay gap runs deep, and it compounds over a lifetime. Women earn less because they’re more likely to work part-time, more likely to take time out for caregiving, and more likely to be passed over for advancement – but also because they are simply paid less for doing the same job. By retirement, they are left with significantly less savings and superannuation – and often, with no safety net at all.

They are not homeless because of bad decisions. They’re homeless because the system was never built for them.

A 2020 report by Housing for the Aged Action Group and Social Ventures Australia estimated that 405,000 older women are at risk of homelessness. That’s nearly half a million women walking a tightrope between surviving and slipping through.

This isn’t new. A 2022 parliamentary inquiry found older women falling through every gap in every system meant to protect them – from family law to superannuation, from social housing to crisis support. Some left relationships with nothing after years of unpaid labour. Some experienced financial abuse. Many never recovered from the cost of raising children alone.

The family law system – with its steep legal costs and outdated assumptions – often leaves women with the kids but not the house, not the support, and certainly not the recognition. A woman can give up her career to raise a family and walk away with little more than a Centrelink payment and a legal system she can’t afford to engage with.

Others stayed in abusive relationships out of fear – fear they couldn’t make it financially, fear for their children – and now find themselves abandoned in old age. Not just by their partners, but by the very systems that promised to help them rebuild.

Some left the Family Court years ago with a parenting order and a bag of clothes, believing that would be enough to start over. It wasn’t. And yes, this is happening here too – in the Hawkesbury. Local homelessness services say they’re seeing more older women than ever before. Some are living in cars behind shopping centres. Some rotate between relatives’ homes. Many have never asked for help in their lives.

Governments of all stripes have known this crisis was coming. The warnings were loud and clear. The data has been there for years. Still, the system continues to look the other way – maybe because these women are older, or poor, or simply not politically convenient.

During the 2025 federal election campaign, both major parties have talked a lot about housing – but not much about this. Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund includes a pledge for 4,000 homes for women fleeing violence and older women at risk, plus $100 million for crisis accommodation. It’s something. But critics say the broader women’s budget barely touches women over 50 – the group most at risk.

The Coalition has focused on allowing superannuation to be used for first home purchases – a policy that does little for women with no super and no hope of entering the housing market. Older women don’t even rate a mention in the Coalition’s housing platform. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has spoken of home ownership as a solution to women’s issues, but that skips the obvious: for many older women, home ownership is simply not an option. Not when rent consumes more than half their pension, and public housing waiting lists stretch for years.

And so, the silence lingers.

It’s easy to say this is complex – and it is. But it’s also painfully simple: we either choose to see these women, or we don’t.

As Dr Emma Power from Western Sydney University put it, “Older women have been invisible in housing policy for decades. They are the collateral damage of a housing market that serves investors, not people.”

This isn’t just about funding. It’s about priorities. It’s about whether we believe a 74-year-old woman – who spent her life contributing to her family and her community – deserves to be safe. Or whether we’re content to leave her to a rental market that doesn’t even see her.

Homelessness at this stage of life is more than a policy failure. It is a moral one.

And for a country that claims to believe in the 'fair go', turning our backs on these women may be the most damning verdict of all.