Women in need: Caritas fights poverty and homelessness!

Women in need: Caritas fights poverty and homelessness!

In Austria, alarming 565,000 women are at risk of poverty, while around 143,000 are already massively affected by poverty. These figures illustrate the urgency of how much women suffer from the current crises. Doris Schmidauer, the wife of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, and Caritas draw attention to this emergency in preparation for World Women's Day and demand drastic changes. "Poverty can meet everyone, but women meet them particularly frequently," said Schmidauer and appealed to society to create tighter structures that enable women to live self -determined and protect them from homelessness.

women in emergencies

The situation for affected women is often precarious, many had to move into emergency accommodations due to financial bottlenecks. More than 60 percent of those seeking help at Caritas are women, which indicates a deeply rooted, social imbalance. Single parents in particular are affected by poverty. Doris Anzengruber, head of the Caritas Social Advice Center in Vienna, explains that the salaries and pensions of women are often not sufficient to make a living. "Poverty can affect everyone," says Anzengruber. Support by Caritas is of great importance in this critical phase, since the organization is dependent on donations in order to be able to provide help quickly and easily.

in the women*Center for Caritas in Vienna, Claudia Röder reports that many women who are looking for help have had a long suffering behind them. Violence in partnerships is often a trigger for mental illnesses that pose a challenge in addition to financial problems. "Most of our clients have to experience violent relationships," emphasizes Röder. The women*residential center not only offers a shelter, but also support in crisis situations, whereby place of space is a significant problem, since the demand increases steadily.

In view of the dramatic increase in homeless women, Caritas urgently shows the need for more women ** specific offers of help. Initiatives to support poverty-affected women, such as hygiene article collections or social sponsorships, are in the foreground. The help of the community is essential to address the concerns of these women and to free them from poverty, like Ötv.at and oe24.at Report.