Clare is proud to support the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness, and recently project director for the coalition, Vic Crockford, visited the Clare offices and updated the team on progress and challenges from the last two years.
The Coalition is a small group of skilled intentional women all with a personal connection to women’s experiences of homelessness. They have been taking every opportunity available to raise awareness of the reality of women’s experiences of homelessness in Aotearoa and have started to change public understanding and practice.
They started with sharing their research with us – showing the majority of housing deprived people in Aotearoa are women. One third of those women are wāhine Māori, and the other two significant groups are single women parents with three or more children, and older single women.
The Coalition has recently appointed Dr. Kathy Irwin as kaihautu to ensure they have the capability to really drive system change to meet the needs of wāhine Māori. This has resulted in the development of the Papatūānuku Paradigm: demonstrating that if inequality can be designed into public policy, it can be designed out. They are using this tool to evaluate their own practice and support providers and policy makers to improve their analysis and practice.
To learn more about the Coalition visit here.