In a storage shed on the outskirts of Victoria, Lisa* keeps all her belongings — decades-old letters, diaries, photo albums and furniture.
As the years go by, she worries if there will be a time when she can empty the shed packed with memories and move them into a place she can call home.
Lisa, now in her mid-50s, can’t find an affordable rental on her disability pension.
So she has a nomadic life, driving around Australia with her caravan.
It’s been six years now on the road for Lisa, she doesn’t know how much longer she can live this way.
“There are concerns as far as because I’ve had, you know, serious health issues,” Lisa told the ABC.
“There’s been times when I’ve been really sick and I could barely walk from my caravan to the amenities block to use the toilet.
“There was nobody I could call … there’s nothing worse than having nobody to call on when you need them the most.”
‘We are under the radar homeless’
When Lisa is out on the road trying to find a cheap campsite to park for the night, she meets a lot of people just like her.
“All [the women] had issues with family not being supportive … all with serious health issues, and all with affordability to have no other choice but to live the way they’re living,” she said.
The Australian Homelessness Monitor found the fastest-growing cohort impacted by homelessness over the last six years are people between the ages of 55 and 64.
Despite being in this demographic, she does not describe herself as homeless.
“We don’t get in touch with homelessness services. We are under the radar homeless completely. Nobody would identify us as homeless because we’re not letting people know,” she said.
“The circumstances landed you here … Well, I’m going to choose this because it works best for me.”
Increasing rent assistance could help the housing crisis, expert says
Van life, as Joy* calls it, is not easy. She started living the nomadic lifestyle decades ago after a breakdown in her relationship.
“I became a mother with no financial support from the father, I found even back then, that rent was unaffordable on the disability pension,” Joy told the ABC.
She eventually settled in finding housing for herself, and her child.
But about six years ago, Joy — now in her late 50s — became an empty nester and could no longer afford her two-bedroom duplex.
Other affordable options were not viable because even though she had a rental history, it was only with private landlords, she said.
“I also saw that prices were going up and I’d be struggling to save any money and that in my old age, I would not be able to afford rent,” she said.
“So the only real option was to start being a van lifer again so that I could save up for a nest egg for the period sometime in the future when I’m no longer able to do van life.”
Recent research by the Grattan Institute found the number of older Australians unable to afford rent is growing, and women are disproportionately affected.
But there are solutions, according to University of New South Wales’ Hal Pawson, a professor of housing research and policy.
In line with the Grattan Institute, Professor Pawson believed increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance would help ease the housing stress on older Australians, especially women.
The Labor government has increased the payment over the last two budgets by about 45 per cent.
One of the ways the rent assistance payment could improve is by changing its one-size-fits-all approach, Professor Pawson said.
“The threshold rate and the maximum rate is the same, whether you’re in Dubbo or Potts Point, or wherever you are in the country,” he told the ABC.
“We all know there are enormous differences between housing markets, even in different parts of Sydney, let alone across the state or the country.”
The Grattan Institute has called for rent assistance to be raised by 50 per cent for singles and 40 per cent for couples.
But Professor Pawson believed the payment could be calculated in the same way as social housing rents.
Rent for most social housing tenants is capped at about a quarter of household income.
“Ideally, what rent assistance would do is it would bridge the gap between the amount that you as a tenant can afford to pay,” he said.
“That would imply a system where the maximum rates were hugely different because they would need to be much higher in capital cities and more expensive areas.”
The work of living on the road
Living in a van is almost like a full-time job, according to Joy.
The other night she was up until midnight trying to find a booking for her winter stay. She often spends the winter months in northern Australia to escape the cold.
“I’ll have to do it again because I didn’t get one,” she said.
But before that, Joy will have to find somewhere with good enough reception to make a call to book her stay.
Even emptying her built-in toilet can be tricky, especially when she’s staying in the city rather than in regional areas.
But even then, the available amenities don’t always work.
“Sometimes you get there and you discover that they’re broken. It’s disgusting like, I’ve got to the stage now where I don’t use [my toilet] because it’s such a hassle just trying to find the place,” she said.
“It’s every day there’s something you’ve got maintenance of your vehicle because your house is moving all the time, things break.”
Hope for a forever home still alive
Retired academic Sue Chaplin, who is in her 70s, found work difficult to come by when she returned to Australia after a stint working in India back in 2017.
That’s when she began life as a house sitter. She had a fallback in case house-sitting jobs started to dry up, which they quickly did during the pandemic.
“I had a next-door neighbour [before leaving for India]. She’s now 90, but all the kids had left home. She offered me a bed, basically a room, and I’ve got somewhere to leave stuff,” she told the ABC.
Just like Lisa and Joy, Ms Chaplin is also on a pension.
“If I rented a place. I mean, you know how much the pension is, it doesn’t go very far,” she said.
It’s why Ms Chaplin’s even considered moving overseas.
“Maybe you live there long term because your pension goes a bit further. I don’t see the housing situation here improving,” she said.
Lisa also does not expect things to change either but still has not lost hope.
The shed where all her memories are stored in Victoria is still there, and she isn’t planning on giving up on finding her forever home.
“I don’t think you ever let go of the dream,” Lisa said.
“Because as much as I can say I love this life … I’ll never give up on the hope that maybe one day that would somehow miraculously happen.”
*Lisa and Joy asked the ABC to only use their first names for privacy and safety reasons.
