Lived Experience Advisers' Collective Statement on Homelessness
Homelessness can – and does – happen to anyone. Many of us once lived stable, ordinary lives with routines, jobs, families, and futures we were building toward. But a life can unravel in terrifying and unforeseen ways: a violent partner, an illness, a job loss, a visa barrier, housing damage, a lack of affordable housing options. If it happened to us, it could happen to someone you know.
We are women, trans and gender diverse people who have survived homelessness. Our paths into homelessness are different, yet each of us once had the stability needed to contribute, grow, and belong. Homeless does not mean hopeless. It does not mean incapable. It means we fell through gaps that should never have existed.
Homelessness is not just losing a roof. It is losing the grounding that makes life possible. It is carrying your belongings because there is nowhere safe to leave them. It is the fear of night. It is surviving in a constant state of alert, never fully resting. It is watching your physical and mental health deteriorate, and your future drift further away the longer you are left without a home.
And when we finally asked for help, the system that promised safety retraumatised us instead. When we reached out to services we were not met with help, but too often found ourselves passed around services, handballed like packages, not people, left to fall through the cracks and gaps of a system that was never built to hold us. We were placed in unsafe rooms. Asked to retell our trauma all over again. Judged for our identity, appearance, or circumstances. Relocated away from community supports. Turned away because of narrow definitions of who qualifies for help.
Each retraumatising moment didn’t only hurt us emotionally, it pushed our recovery further out of reach. And every delay comes with a cost far beyond lost time. The longer people are kept homeless, the longer they must rely on crisis services: emergency accommodation, health services, police, family violence services, hospitals, mental health support, food relief, and everything that could have been avoided if we simply had safe housing.
These systemic failures mean that homelessness is not just one crisis: waitlists and delays extend the crisis, retraumatisation compounds it. Being stuck without safe housing, creates new problems and new harm and the system must then carry the weight of problems it created.
We want to rebuild our lives. We want to work, study, parent, contribute and heal. But you cannot rebuild anything when you are constantly recovering from the damage inflicted by the very system meant to support you. Homelessness steals stability. Retraumatisation traps people in harm. Extended delays keep people stuck in services they should no longer need.
This impacts us all. Housing is one of the strongest public health protections we have. Without it, community costs rise across every sector. Homelessness is not an individual problem, it is a social, economic, and generational burden.
We want a future where housing is safe, affordable, good-quality, and connected to community. Where support meets our needs, is effective, safe and dignifying. Where the system helps the first time, not after people break. Where lived experience is not treated as symbolic but as essential expertise guiding real change.
We are not asking just to be heard. We are asking to be included in designing solutions.
We invite policymakers, housing authorities, service providers and the public to stand with us, to demand systems that heal rather than harm, that shorten crisis rather than extend it, and that restore dignity rather than strip it away.
Our Vision
When lived experience leads, safety returns.
When systems heal instead of harm, recovery begins.
When housing is treated as a human right, homelessness ends.
Our Call to Action
We are not asking only to be heard. We are asking to be included in co-designing the solutions.
We ask:
- Policymakers to embed lived experience leadership at every level
- Housing authorities to commit to trauma-informed, gender-safe, culturally safe support pathways
- Service providers to collaborate rather than handball
- The public to demand a system that heals, not harms
This affects all of us. Housing is the foundation of health, safety, work, education, connection and community wellbeing.
When lived experience leads, safety returns, dignity is restored, and homelessness ends. Not just for us but for all who come after us. We hold unshakeable hope. Walk with us as we build a future where no one is forced to stay in crisis, and no one is denied the chance to rebuild their life.
Lived Experience Advisers to the Housing Safety project include Bron Ferne, Evlin Jankoff, Grace Bell, Jacinta D'Angelo, Jamil Nabole, J, Macy Choudhury, Mim, Stacey Stokes, and those who have chosen to remain anonymous.
