We are very pleased to advise that Dini Liyanarachchi has been appointed Ageing on the Edge Advocacy Lead. Dini is located in Sydney at the Uniting NSW/ACT office when not working at home. Having started work on 3 May, Dini visited Melbourne to meet with the HAAG team. We thrilled to have her on board.

Dini and Kobi also visited Brisbane in May to meet with QShelter and the Housing Older Women (HOW) movement. Discussions between QShelter, the HOW movement and the Queensland government have been positive, and we are lending support based on HAAG’s experience in delivering services and advocating for older people’s housing needs.

Dini presented at the NSW Ministerial Advisory Council on Ageing (MACA) in early June. Council members responded positively to the presentation. Kathryn Greiner, MACA Chair, attended the NSW Ageing on the Edge members forum as guest presenter and provided some helpful insights into how to influence governments on the housing needs of older people.

Some of you may recall that last year HAAG hosted an event during Homelessness Week, At Risk: Older women facing homelessness in Australia. At the event, we launched research that identifies an estimated 405,000 women aged 45 and over to be at risk of homelessness in Australia. We are planning a follow-up online event in partnership with the University of Melbourne in July or September: 2021 At Risk #2 Older women facing homelessness in Australia: from awareness to action.

The online event will be in two parts:

1. breakout sessions on topics of interest to the 550 people who registered for the event last year including influencing for change, local-scale solutions and the intersection between housing and family and domestic violence.
2. political panel.

Further details will be provided once we confirm our panel members and the timing of the event.  We hope you will join us.

The National Alliance of Seniors for Housing (NASH) coordination group has been meeting regularly. The coordination group is trialling an online platform that HAAG has developed to connect people across the country to share stories and housing solutions. We are hoping the platform will offer better functionality than Facebook in grouping and sorting discussion topics. We hope to test the platform more widely before a formal launch.