It’s the most important million made in real estate this year.
The property industry has come together to raise seven figures for those experiencing homelessness in Australia, through its inaugural ‘A Night Without Home’ campaign.
The initiative saw real estate agents, executives and other staff, spend a night in the shoes of one of the more than 122,000 Australians experiencing homelessness, by sleeping without the basic comforts of a home.
The initiative, created by A Home for All Foundation, saw participants sleep outside, in parking lots, at work and on friends’ couches, on a night during October.
The response was enormous for the inaugural campaign, with almost $1.02 million raised during the month.
LJ Hooker CEO, and A Home for All Foundation Advisory Committee Chair, Christine Mikhael, was overjoyed.
“The fundraising success of A Night Without Home highlights what’s possible when our industry unites and works together,” Ms Mikhael said.
“The momentum we’ve seen so far has been incredible and it’s only the beginning. The Foundation’s Advisory Committee is determined to drive meaningful change and will direct our fundraising efforts to charities with a track record of delivering high impact solutions to tackle homelessness.”
Ms Mikhael has been in the industry for 37 years and has always held the issue of homelessness close to her heart.
“It’s a privilege to be in real estate and help provide people with a place to call home,” she said. “(But) it’s quite interesting. We provide shelter. It’s a basic need, but we only do it for the people that can afford it. I always wondered why the sector didn’t come together many years ago.”
A shocking statistic
As an ambassador for the Vinnies CEO Sleepout and a long time volunteer, Ms Mikhael has vast experience with homelessness, but says she’s never seen the situation as bad as it is now.
“This year, for one in three people that presented themselves to Vinnies for some type of welfare around homelessness, it was the first time they’d ever put their hand out for help,” she said. “That’s shocking.
“The fastest growing cohort of homelessness are women and children, as victims of family and domestic violence and they are typically hidden.
“Of people experiencing homelessness, we don’t see 94 per cent. And the majority of those people are women and children, and it goes beyond not having a roof over their head. There’s psychological damage, there’s emotional damage, there’s physical abuse. There’s mental abuse, there’s financial abuse. It’s something we can’t turn a blind eye to anymore.
“A lot of people think it’s somebody else’s problem to solve. But there’s nobody else solving it. We all have to play our part.”
Ms Mikhael was also impressed with the participation of the non-residential parts of the industry.
“It’s not just the big, national brands,” she said. “There are lots of independents, there are institutions like the REIA. There’s commercial, developers and roughly about 50 different brands taking part in the efforts this year, and it’s our first year, which I think is amazing.
“Scott Rollason, the CEO of the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA), raised over $8000. He’s a real champion.
“A heartfelt thank you to our incredible launch partners, our matched donation partners, and to every single person who has participated and donated to help us reach our initial fundraising goal.”
Beautiful community support
Ingrid Medlicott of Gittoes East Gosford has always seen helping the local community as part of her job.
“Back in 2017 we started a charity account,” Ms Medlicott said. “We donate $100 from our fee from every sale, and the business matches it. Throughout the year, we’re continually supporting charities. “There’s schools, the Cancer Council, we’re a big supporter of the Coast Shelter here on The Central Coast … we’ve donated more than $110,000 to charities since we started doing it.”
When A Night Without a Home came along, it was a “no-brainer” for Ms Medlicott’s team, who raised more than $15,000.
“We’re constantly coming across people that need support or short term accommodation. It’s particularly the women and children, in a situation where they have to leave (an unsafe environment). It’s the hidden side of the issue that people aren’t really aware of because they’re not seeing it,” she said.
“I’m often being asked if I know someone with a granny flat for a person for three or six months and we put it out on our community page to try and find something.
“There’s a beautiful support network in our community.”
‘Imagine that was your reality’
Place Estate Agents ran a sleep out at their head office in Brisbane as part of the campaign, raising an impressive $22,000.
Place head of marketing Gareth Gower said it was an opportunity to contribute to the community.
“A lot of our agents and officers get involved in community work directly with charities and schools, but at HQ, we probably don’t get as many opportunities to do that,” Mr Gower said. “Our approach was to get as many of the team involved in the initiative as possible, to sign up as fundraisers and as part of the team.
“We then spent the best part of a month actively spruiking it through our network and through social media, internal communications, to keep reminding people that we were doing it.
“We were really chuffed to get (more than $22,000) and contribute to that overall goal of a million dollars.”
The night the team spent in the carpark came with some unexpected challenges.
“We’ve got an area where we’ve got a few car spaces with bollards, so we camped there just knowing the bollards were up and no one was going to steam in and park over the top of us,” Mr Gower said. “But we didn’t realise until the night that there’s these flood lights that stay on all night long. We’re also next to a couple restaurants and didn’t realise it was garbage night.
“At 2.30am came the recycling truck, about five metres from where we were sleeping, to empty the bins. And then 4am came the normal garbage truck. So we didn’t get much sleep. But that’s the idea behind it.
“I think the eye opener was when you imagined that was your reality. Doing it for a night was a good perspective check, but it was actually easy compared to the reality that so many people face having to do that every single night.
“Being an industry that is community focused, we’ve got a good microphone to help raise awareness. And I think it’s really important that we do what we can to give back as an industry.”
Power to make a difference
A Home for All Foundation Advisory Committee member, and head of organisational development at Ray White, Natalie Hortz said the initiative showed how the power of the industry can be used to make a difference.
“Ray White kicked off our support for the foundation at our Connect 2025 conference, where we live auctioned to a crowd of 3000 people an incredible line-up of experiences and prizes that money can’t usually buy,” Ms Hortz said. “Our industry is powerful and we’re in a position to help drive this change and to start important conversations that help make a real difference in local communities.”
100 per cent of funds raised from the campaign will be distributed in early 2026. To learn more and to support A Home for All Foundation, visit ahomeforall.com.au.
This article is part of the Back Australia series, which was supported by Australian Made Campaign, Harvey Norman, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, R.M.Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP.
