can't do this anymore, I'm 24, like they say what my life's about, they say how it's meant to be,

so I just screamed at them, it's kind of like, get me out of this.

Hello everyone, welcome to Changes.

Hello you lot, I'm speaking to you on the eve of International Women's Day and to

highlight International Women's Day. On Changes I wanted to speak to someone who represents

a group of very marginalized and often overlooked women and that is a woman called Kerry Douglas.

Kerry is a single mother of three children, two of which she looks after full time.

She is a certified substance abuse counselor and is studying for a degree in psychology.

Now the reason why I want to speak to Kerry is because Kerry was homeless for many, many

years and it's women's experience of homelessness that we're talking about in this week's episode.

Before I tell you more about Kerry, let me just break down a little bit about homelessness for

women in general. The average age of death for women sleeping rough or an emergency accommodation

is 41 years old, that is four years lower than the average age of death for a man sleeping rough.

Women sleeping rough are at much greater risk of physical and sexual violence than men.

They're more likely to be struggling with complex trauma, mental health issues, physical health,

domestic abuse and or substance misuse. Some women are coerced into not using contraceptives by

partners and some are permanently separated from children, causing unimaginable grief, shame

and guilt, causing them to be alienated from the health and support services that they need so

much. A lot of women who experience homelessness are so vulnerable that they have to hide from harm,

but hiding from harm also means that women are hidden from help. So even though there is statistics

out there, it is constantly reinforced that they are not accurate because no one has a real idea

of just how many women out there are suffering. So there's a lot of work to be done in terms of

...