Case studies
An estimated 3,936 women are experiencing homelessness across South Australia, yet many face significant barriers to seeking help. Hutt St Centre supported 528 women in 2025, with demand increasing by 77 per cent since 2021.
For women who have experienced domestic and family violence, mixed-gender environments can feel unsafe or overwhelming. Caring for children, managing trauma and navigating complex service systems can create further barriers, making it harder to reach out.
Rosalie Rendu Safe Place is being established to help overcome these barriers. It will provide a dedicated, women-only, trauma-informed environment that welcomes children and brings practical assistance, wellbeing services and specialist support together in one accessible location.
Meet Jess.
Jess knows how much the right support, offered in a safe and welcoming environment, can change someone’s life. She also knows how difficult finding that support can be.
Her story
Jess experienced violence and abuse throughout her childhood and later in her marriage, leaving a lasting impact on her mental health and wellbeing.
As she navigated the effects of trauma, Jess experienced challenges with substance use, housing instability and homelessness. She spent periods sleeping rough and relying on temporary accommodation with strangers, sometimes in unsafe environments. She also faced the distress of being separated from her two children.
Finding appropriate support was difficult. Navigating multiple services, eligibility requirements and complex government systems felt overwhelming, particularly while managing homelessness, trauma, mental health and substance use.
Even when Jess found somewhere to seek assistance, feeling safe enough to share her experiences presented another barrier.
As a survivor of domestic and family violence, she sometimes found Hutt St Centre’s busy, mixed-gender Wellbeing Centre overwhelming and triggering. Being around men could bring back memories of past trauma, making it harder to feel comfortable, ask questions or speak openly about what she needed.
Despite these challenges, Jess remained determined to rebuild her life.
Through Hutt St Centre, she connected with a dedicated case navigator and received ongoing support through the Aspire program, alongside mental health services, allied health professionals and women’s wellbeing activities.
This consistent, personalised support helped Jess work towards recovery, secure permanent housing and strengthen her relationships with her children.
Today, Jess has a safe and stable place to call home and is exploring opportunities to build a career that draws on her lived experience. She is passionate about helping others navigate the services and systems she once found so overwhelming.
How Rosalie Rendu Safe Place will support people like Jess
Jess believes a dedicated women-only environment would have made it easier to seek help earlier, reducing the anxiety and uncertainty she experienced.
Having a women’s centre when I was experiencing homelessness would have helped with a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. When you’re a woman who’s been through stuff, even if it’s not DV, you’re going to connect with women more than men.
Rosalie Rendu Safe Place will offer women and their children a private, welcoming place to begin with what they need that day.
Women will be able to access food, showers and other essential facilities, alongside personalised assessment, coordinated support and connections to housing, health, domestic and family violence, financial, legal and other specialist services.
They will not need to know exactly which service they require before walking through the door.
By bringing support together, Rosalie Rendu Safe Place aims to make seeking help less intimidating and reduce the need for women to navigate multiple systems or repeatedly retell difficult experiences. It will also provide an environment where mothers can seek assistance while caring for their children.
For Jess, connection with other women is another important part of feeling supported.
“It’s a healing process that doesn’t stop, but you get stronger, if you’re able to access the right support and have other people to talk to. Even a support group where women can come in and talk about their stories if they feel comfortable or just sit and listen. That’s how a women’s centre is going to help a lot of people.”
A safe place to begin again
Drawing on Hutt St Centre’s more than 70 years of experience, Rosalie Rendu Safe Place will work alongside existing services to help women access support earlier and build pathways towards stable housing, improved wellbeing, family connection and independence.
Located close to Hutt St Centre’s existing site on Hutt Street, it will operate as a daytime wellbeing and support service. It will not provide accommodation or overnight shelter.
Made possible through the generosity of South Australia’s philanthropic and business community, the project is currently in the detailed design phase, informed by women with lived experience, frontline staff and specialist partners.
Rosalie Rendu Safe Place is expected to open in 2027, subject to planning approvals, procurement and construction.