<
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-24/tiny-homes-houses-builds-women-homeless-home-ownership/102293760>
'Single mum Lauren De Groot was house-sitting when she saw a Facebook post
offering homeless or at-risk women $55,000 to help build a tiny house.
The catch — you had to be involved in the building process.
"I thought it was a scam," she recalls. "Why are people going out of their way
to offer a bunch of strangers a heap of money?"
She applied anyway, desperate to scrounge something back from her "three years
of hell".
In 2020, Lauren had lost everything in a house fire. Two years later, she and
her three-year-old daughter barely escaped with their lives when floods
inundated their rental in Lismore.
She moved in with her mum, then some friends, then a caravan, then a van.
The idea of owning her own place was too far-fetched to even imagine.
Anna Glanzen was made homeless in the same floods and was living in a caravan
when she came across the same Facebook post.
As her eight-year-old son lay sleeping, she dashed off "the shittiest
application" and hoped for the best.
Jes Star, an aged care worker with a history of childhood trauma, was nearing
retirement when she saw the post.
Given her paltry superannuation and few material resources, it had already
dawned on her that she could well be homeless in her old age and she had begun
looking into tiny houses.
Like Lauren, she was suspicious. "Who are these people?" she recalls thinking.
"Can I trust this?"
Three years on, each of these women live in their own tiny home, experiencing a
sense of security they never thought possible.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
