As Homelessness Week 2026 begins, JRS Australia joins communities across the country in calling for action to ensure everyone has access to safe, secure and affordable housing. 

For the women we accompany through our Finding Safety Project, however, homelessness will not end without addressing family and domestic violence, immigration-facilitated abuse, and systems that leave women on temporary visas with nowhere safe to turn. 

Every week, our Women’s Space meets women who have made the courageous decision to leave violence, only to discover that safety is out of reach. Without work rights, access to income support, or pathways into long-term housing, too many are forced to choose between remaining with a perpetrator or facing homelessness. 

No woman should have to make that choice.

The hidden reality of homelessness 

Homelessness does not always look like sleeping rough. 

For many refugees, people seeking asylum and other temporary visa holders, homelessness is hidden. Families move between overcrowded homes, sleep on friends’ couches, stay in temporary accommodation, or remain in unsafe situations because there is simply nowhere else to go. 

For women escaping violence, these barriers are even greater. 

Our Finding Safety team regularly supports women who are unable to access crisis accommodation because they cannot demonstrate an exit pathway, have no income due to visa restrictions, and are excluded from mainstream support systems altogether. 

Over 50 per cent of women and children currently supported through the Finding Safety Program are facing immediate risks of homelessness.

Violence should never lead to homelessness 

Family and domestic violence remains one of the leading causes of homelessness for women in Australia. 

For women on temporary visas, perpetrators often exploit immigration status as another tool of coercive control. Threats of deportation, financial dependence, isolation and misinformation about visa conditions can leave women believing they have no choice but to stay. 

Even after leaving violence, many continue to face significant barriers. Rebuilding financial independence and navigating complex legal systems is hard at the best of times, but advocating for yourself in a new language, without communities ties, and without financial assistance or safety nets, can feel impossible. 

Refuges and crisis accommodation providers remain under pressure and almost impossible to access. When women are fortunate enough to secure a place, there are often few long-term or transitional housing options available, and without exit pathways, women are turned away or left moving regularly between temporary accommodations with their children. 

Individual resilience is not the answer to this problem. We need reform to systems that are not designed to respond to the realities faced by women on temporary visas.

We know what works 

Despite these challenges, we also see hope. 

When women have access to safe accommodation, trauma-informed support and practical assistance, they can rebuild their lives. 

Through the Finding Safety Project, our team walks alongside women as they recover from violence, reconnect with community, access legal and migration support, and begin planning for the future. 

Our experience reflects what many specialist organisations already know: investing early in safe housing and specialist support reduces long-term homelessness, improves health and wellbeing, strengthens workforce participation and creates better outcomes for children and families. 

The question is whether decision-makers are prepared to ensure they are available to everyone who needs them.

What needs to change 

Homelessness Week is an opportunity not only to raise awareness, but to advocate for lasting change. 

Based on our experience supporting women on temporary visas experiencing family and domestic violence, JRS Australia is calling for: 

• Increased investment in safe, stable and long-term housing options for women escaping violence, regardless of visa status. 

• Reform of eligibility criteria for the NSW Rent Choice Start Safely program so women are not excluded because they are ineligible for social housing. 

• Sustainable funding for specialist, trauma-informed services with expertise supporting refugee and migrant women experiencing violence. 

• Improved access to employment pathways and work rights so women can safely rebuild their independence. 

• Full implementation of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 in ways that include women on temporary visas. 

• Recognition of adequate housing as a fundamental human right through stronger human rights protections, including a Human Rights Act in New South Wales and nationally. 

This is happening on our watch 

Too often, women on temporary visas fall between systems. They may be ineligible for social housing, excluded from income support, unable to work, and unable to access the services designed to protect people escaping violence. 

The result is a system that places impossible choices before women who have already experienced significant trauma. 

This is happening here in Australia. It is happening in our communities. 

And it is happening under policy settings that can be changed. 

No woman should be denied safety because of her visa status. 

Everyone deserves the opportunity to live free from violence, with the security of a safe place to call home.

Join us this Homelessness Week 

Throughout Homelessness Week we will be sharing stories from our Women’s Space and Finding Safety Project that highlight both the challenges women face and the hope that comes when people are given the opportunity to recover and rebuild. 

We invite you to: 

• Read and share the stories from our Finding Safety team. 

• Learn more about the barriers facing women on temporary visas. 

• Advocate for policies that ensure housing and safety are available to everyone, regardless of visa status. 

• Stand with JRS Australia as we continue advocating for a future where no woman has to choose between violence and homelessness.