Ian Ugarte discusses his organization Small Is the New Big, which creates affordable housing solutions. Rebecca shares her personal experience with homelessness and how she got involved with the company, addressing the overlooked crisis of homelessness among women over 50 in Australia.
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Welcome back, everyone. Now it's the surprising new face of homelessness in Australia. Women over 50 are now the fastest growing group of people struggling to keep a roof over their heads.
They're not sleeping on the streets, but they don't have a safe place to stay.
Experts say rising divorce rates, skyrocketing rents and high unemployment have created a new epidemic of hidden homelessness. For women over 50.
The number sleeping in their cars has risen by 75% in the past few years.
And those seeking help from homelessness services has risen by 83%.
Staggering stats, aren't they? Now, one organisation is working to help turn this problem around, focusing on housing affordability. The company is called Small Is the New Big, and founder Ian Yugatay and single mother Rebecca Radolph join us now. Good morning to both of you. Morning, Rebecca. I want to start with your story first. You found yourself homeless in your 50s, so tell us a bit about what happened.
Well, like many people, I was hit by the gfc. I lost my house and I had to close the doors of my business and it was at the same time my mother became very unwell. So this really had a cascading effect. So I didn't have my house and I didn't have my business, but also couldn't earn an income while I was caring for her. So I didn't plan for that to happen.
Yeah, right.
But found myself in a very precarious situation.
And how bad did it get for you?
Well, to the point where I really didn't know what to do. I didn't know I couldn't work just because of, you know, the circumstances. Couldn't work while I was looking after mother. But also I had physical issues that happened that came from the care.
Of course. Yeah.
In Rebecca's story. This story, unfortunately, isn't an isolated one. Why do you think we're seeing so many women in their 50s becoming homeless?
Well, I mean, I think we've got to a place where housing diversification and genuine community's been lost in our housing. We build the largest houses in the world at 246 square metres. Each one of those houses has two and a half people in it. There's 12 million empty bedrooms tonight when we go to sleep. And, you know, you can fit 22.6 Hong Kong houses in one Australian house. So we've got an upside down marketplace because we've got up to 80% of the people that are looking for a rental are single or couples and 80% of our stock are three, four and five bedroom houses. So for women like Rebecca, it's just a very difficult thing because it's not the right housing stock to rent at the affordable rate.
So you started this business small is the new big five years ago. Tell us how this works. Explain it to the viewers.
Yeah, so what we do is we look at the existing housing stock or building new all over the country, we take a larger home, and we take that down into small micro apartments. So each one's got their own bathroom, some of them have their own kitchenette, and then they share a communal area. And you actually end up with a community being forced within its own self. And then the street starts to appeal. And, like, people like Rebecca actually are court residents in there, and they're fantastic. They look after the place, they do everything that's required and let the owners know and then, you know, get them to a place where they can actually save money and hopefully get into their own house very soon.
Yeah, by reducing that major, major sort of rental burden. Rebecca, a major turning point for you was coming across a job advertisement, and it was for Ian's company. So just tell us about that.
Yeah, that was a hu Change. Look, the opportunity to actually get back into the workforce and regain some of my independence.
What did you advertise for?
We'd actually gone onto Gumtree and we put in a Mary Poppins ad and a clear list of what we were wanting in Rebecca.
So you're looking for Mary Poppins?
Yep, and she's about to be our Mary changed. Rebecca turned up, and we're just so grateful and so lucky to have Rebecca there because she looks after our kids and she looks after, like, I get really emotional because she's really changed our life and it's great, great to have someone like her around, too. So we set each other off all the time.
Rebecca, the other women out there who are in this position, those stats we just played at the beginning were quite. Really alarming.
Yeah, very.
What advice do you have for them?
I'd say that if you find yourself in a situation where you feel life's kicked you to the curb, your job, or your husband's kicked you to the curb, it's very easy to start kicking yourself to the curb as well. But that's when you need to remember you're greater than your circumstance and you can begin to look ways to turn things around. That's why I love doing what I'm doing, because it means that, you know, people have a community we need to reach out to community. When you're in that cold lonely place. It's the only place where you grow. You know, they say it takes a village to raise a child, but actually, it takes a village to keep the villages thriving as well.
Well done, both of you. And, Ian, well done at doing this. I can see how it's affecting you as well. You're a property developer now. You've got a heart of gold. Look at you go.
Yeah.
I'm trying to do my best to smash to pieces so it doesn't act as a commodity anymore. And that would be ultimately our outcome.
Amazing.
Yeah. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Ian. And for more information on affordable housing, headtosmallisthenewbig.com?au and if you're going through a tough time, Lifeline is there to help. Their number is 13, 11, 14.
