In this episode of Parents With Questions, Adam Gibson speaks with Dr Dionne Payn, founder of Women 4 Homes, about the hidden housing crisis facing older women in Australia.

Women over 55 are one of the fastest-growing groups facing homelessness and housing insecurity in Australia. Many are not living on the streets, but are sleeping in cars, couch surfing, house sitting, living in garages, or quietly moving between unsafe and unstable arrangements.

Dionne explains the systemic factors behind this crisis, including the gender pay gap, career breaks for raising children, divorce, illness, lower superannuation balances, and the relatively short history of women having full access to financial products and property ownership.

The conversation also explores why older women are the “wisdom keepers” of our communities, and why protecting their dignity, security and place in society benefits everyone.

Dionne shares the model behind Women 4 Homes: a for-purpose, for-profit, property-backed approach that allows everyday people to invest in affordable, sustainable and dignified housing solutions. The first flagship co-living home for older women is close to fully funded and will be based in regional Victoria.

This is not charity. It is a community-powered housing solution designed to create both social impact and financial sustainability.

In this episode, we discuss:

The hidden homelessness crisis affecting older Australian women.

Why many women facing housing insecurity remain invisible.

The systemic financial barriers women have faced across generations.

Why co-living can offer dignity, privacy, affordability and community.

How Women 4 Homes is creating beautiful, affordable homes for older women.

Why the first flagship project matters.

How everyday people can get involved through investment, skills, time, introductions, media support or sharing the campaign.

Here are some links to Women4Homes resources,

Website: www.women4homes.com

Book: E.T.H.I.C.A.L Property Investing: The Busy Profeesionals Guide to Double Digit Returns Through Affordable & Sustainable Homes

And here are four things that anybody can do to move this mission forwards.

1. Take the declaration at www.women4homes.com/wearedone

2. Share it with your networks

3. Let us know how you would like to contribute, whether that's through money (investing), time (volunteering), skills (property, legal, financial, community building etc), or connections (introducing us to others)

4. Become a member (pay what you can afford) and get access to the book, the Ethical Property Investing Course, monthly live masterclasses, and a community of women who are done waiting and are taking matters into their own hands.

For the past five years many Australians have focused on protecting themselves from a system they no longer trust.

But what if the next chapter isn’t about resistance?

What if it’s about creation?

In this episode, Trent Chapman explains why some of the world’s most influential organisations use public foundations, charities and purpose-driven structures to create lasting impact—and how ordinary Australians can do the same.

If you’ve ever wanted to build something bigger than yourself, this conversation may change the way you think about business, philanthropy and legacy.

PS. On Thursday 18th June, Trent is hosting a live deep-dive workshop on public foundations, charitable structures, grants, tax-effective giving and the practical steps involved in setting these up.

To register, simply email trent@iamawakening.com.au with: PWQ – Awakened Blueprint in the subject line.

Over the years through Parents With Questions, many of you have come to know me as the face of things.

But the truth is there has always been a co-founder quietly behind the scenes who rarely gets mentioned, and that’s my wife Fiona.

While I’ve been out the front speaking up for families and questioning broken systems, Fiona has been raising our three daughters, running her own architecture business and obsessing over one very practical question that most parents wrestle with every single day:

How do we raise healthy kids in a world where unhealthy has become completely normalised?

That’s what this new podcast conversation is about.

Because the reality is most parents already know many of the standard breakfast and lunchbox foods aren’t really working.

The sugary cereals.

The “healthy” breakfast drinks.

The processed snacks.

The endless convenience foods marketed directly at exhausted parents and hungry kids.

The problem isn’t that parents don’t care - in fact its quite the opposite.

The problem is that modern life is busy, rushed and overwhelming, and school mornings are often where good intentions fall apart.

And sadly, big food companies have leveraged that reality to their own advantage — marketing ultra-processed convenience foods directly into the chaos of modern family life, while an entire generation of kids is now experiencing historically high rates of obesity, metabolic dysfunction and chronic disease at increasingly younger ages.

In this conversation, Fiona shares:

* why so many kids today are overfed but undernourished,

* how food directly impacts focus, mood, behaviour and energy,

* why healthy fats and protein matter so much for growing brains,

* how schools and marketing have quietly normalised ultra-processed food,

* and most importantly, simple, proven hacks and tools that parents can adopt to begin changing their kids’ relationship with food without turning life upside down.

No perfection.

No guilt.

No extreme ideology.

Just practical shifts that actually work in real family life.

This is probably one of the most important parenting conversations we’ve had in a long time, and its one close to my heart as someone who has been championing kids health and connection to real food and farming for years now.

If you’ve ever looked at your child’s lunchbox, a supermarket aisle, or a chaotic school morning and quietly thought:

“There has to be a better way than this.”

Then this is worth a listen - and worth sharing with a friend or family member who you know could be feeling the same way.

Adam

PS: Fiona also shares the simple “30-second breakfast shift” that led her to create “Rock it Fuel” for our own girls after years of struggling with the school morning rush ourselves. Its literally a game changer for your kids’ focus, behaviour and energy every day, plus solves your school morning breakfast stress into the bargain :) You can try it for yourself here for under fifteen bucks for a week’s worth - make sure you let us know how it goes for you!