Women's Community Shelters

Keeping women and their families safe
from domestic violence and homelessness

About Women’s Community Shelters

Women’s Community Shelters works with communities to provide short term (up to 3 months) emergency accommodation and support in a safe, comfortable and secure environment that enables homeless women to rebuild self-esteem and achieve control and fulfillment in their lives.

The mission of WCS is to:

Identify areas where there is an unmet need for emergency/crisis accommodation;
proactively work with local community organisations/agencies/individuals in those areas to help set up community shelters;
provide ongoing governance, mentoring, fundraising and quality assurance support to assist in the ongoing operation of those shelters;
engage with government, non-government organisations/agencies, businesses and the philanthropic sector to promote awareness of, and collaborative action on, women’s homelessness.

How is Women’s Community Shelters achieving its goals?

Women’s Community Shelters has shelters in Manly, Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai, The Sanctuary – The Hills Women’s Shelter, and Great Lakes Women’s Shelter providing a safe haven for women in crisis situations. Additional women’s shelters will play a key role in alleviating the compounding impacts of homelessness, where women’s immediate needs become complex needs and the homelessness cycle hard to escape from.

How is Women’s Community Shelters funded?

WCS's predominant sources of funding are philanthropy and community fundraising with Government contributing a portion to their front line services.

What is Lenity Australia’s involvement?

Lenity Australia supports the “WCS Shelter Network – Single Women’s and Women & Children’s Outreach Program”. This program provides more active and intensive support to vulnerable women and children as they transition from crisis to long-term housing and support women to access training and employment.

Some facts:

Domestic violence is the biggest cause of preventable death for women aged 15-44. - ABS Personal Safety Survey
Around every 10 days a woman dies from domestic or family violence - Counting Dead Women: Destry The Joint
For every bed in WCS shelters, five requests are received. - WCS data
Every 3 hours a woman is hospitalised due to domestic violence. - ABC Fact Check Unit
1 in 3 women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by someone they know. - ABS Personal Safety Survey
1 in 4 Australian children are exposed to domestic violence. - ABS Personal Safety Survey