Women being turned away from at-capacity shelters
Thousands of women end up on the streets every year, living out of their cars to try and escape domestic violence situations. One young Perth woman with lived experience is paying it forward volunteering at the same services that helped her through some of her darkest days.
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00:00This car park is where Cherie Finity and her son would escape to, fleeing domestic violence,
00:07forced to live out of a boot in the middle of winter.
00:10Unless I was being hurt that day and in severe need of accommodation right then and then,
00:19they weren't going to help me, so that's why I spent so much time in my car.
00:23It's taken years, but Miss Finity's life has turned around.
00:28She now volunteers, making care packs filled with the items she once desperately needed.
00:35So I think to myself, what would I like if I was going into a new home and I was starting fresh?
00:42I'd like those little extra things to make it more of a home.
00:46And there's no shortage of people lining up for help.
00:50Over the last number of months we've seen a huge increase in the amount of people
00:56who just cannot make ends meet.
01:00This organisation runs monthly hubs, providing food hampers, sanitary products, haircuts and dog washes.
01:07I'm all nice and clean, thank you for my wash.
01:10It's all the things that would form part of somebody's essential daily life
01:14if you were living in a property managing with life.
01:18Online support forums with hundreds of comments suggest that when the sun goes down,
01:23more and more people are spending the night in car parks around Perth,
01:27having been turned away from homeless shelters that are at capacity.
01:31Domestic violence is the leading cause for homelessness for women,
01:34and Miss Finity felt stuck in the cycle.
01:37He would tell me to get out, but I wasn't allowed to take my daughter with me,
01:41so therefore I would keep going back and keep staying because I just didn't want to leave my daughter.
01:46She still hasn't found a house, living with two of her five children in a caravan park,
01:52but hopes one day her family will be together, under the same roof.