Older women fall victim to crisis in homelessnes,
Julia May in the Age, Tuesday 9 April 2014.
In 2012 Joan Lansbury was living in a rundown flat in Pascoe Vale with dodgy hot water, a leaky toilet and appliances that didn't work properly.
She was too scared to complain in case the owner of the flat she'd rented for 15 years put the price up.
But suddenly he did just that, leaving Ms Lansbury, then retired after 25 years as a nursing aide, just $70 a fortnight to live on. She didn't know where to turn.
"I must admit things were so bad at some stages I didn't care whether I was alive or dead," she says.
Ms Lansbury is one of a soaring number of ordinary middle-class women who find themselves on the verge of homelessness in older age.
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