00:02Scouting for a safe spot to sleep.
00:05This is the kind of car park I would be sleeping rough in.
00:10Taking extra precautions as a woman.
00:12Terrifying. I slept with a cricket bat on top of myself every night as a deterrent.
00:19Adelaide mother Amira found herself living in her car over 10 months during a relationship breakdown.
00:24My pay was to buy food for the kids, petrol, all of the bills.
00:31If I had to miss out, I had to miss out.
00:34As a middle-class working woman, she felt shame.
00:37I was hosting parties. I just got promoted at work, highly accomplished.
00:43I had everything together and now I really don't.
00:48I was quite hard on myself and really struggling to see a way out of that.
00:55With help from her children's school, she got back on her feet.
00:58She now helps others secure transitional housing and says more short and long-term accommodation is needed.
01:04Data from one local support service shows a 77% rise in female clients over the past four years.
01:10Experts are calling for more investment in long-term homes like this one, which opened earlier this month
01:16and received just under $6 million in state government funding to support people living with mental health challenges.
01:21It's a really cost-saving and efficient form of care.
01:26Psychiatrist Olav Nilsson created a similar model in Sydney, which provides continuity of care to those with schizophrenia.
01:32It's just embarrassing to see people sleeping in the open in such a rich society.
01:37However, it's very much in our self-interest as well because it costs more to neglect the homeless mentally ill
01:42than it does to house and treat them.
