About Us

• About Us
• Leadership Team
• Our Impact
• Our Stories
• Our Supporters

Catherine House provides accommodation and support services for women over the age of 18, unaccompanied by children, experiencing homelessness in South Australia.

Our Mission

Through a recovery oriented focus, women are offered a safe, supportive environment with opportunities to achieve improved personal and economic wellbeing.

Our History

Catherine House was founded in 1988 by the Sisters of Mercy to address an unmet need for women experiencing homelessness in Adelaide. Originally supported by the South Australian Housing Trust and the City of Adelaide, Catherine House opened with just 12 rooms. In subsequent years, our vital organisation has grown and refined its model, and is now recognised as South Australia’s only recovery based service for women experiencing homelessness.

At Catherine House, we honour our long-standing connection to the Mercy tradition, inspired by the life and legacy of Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy. Named in her honour, our organisation carries forward her vision of compassion, dignity, and justice for women experiencing homelessness.

Catherine McAuley’s unwavering commitment to addressing the needs of the vulnerable continues to guide our mission today. Her belief in practical mercy—offering shelter, education, and support—remains at the heart of everything we do.

We are proud to uphold this legacy, working alongside our community to create pathways toward hope, healing and a positive future for women who access our service in crisis.

Our Recovery Model

Catherine House can now accommodate up to 60 women per night, plus outreach services to women living in the community. Providing women with a safe, supportive environment to recover from homelessness and the issues they are dealing with is vital to their recovery and overall wellbeing. Our mental health programs offer women an opportunity to receive a range of individual support services.

Our education services develop not only practical skills such as literacy, numeracy and job seeking, but also self-development and training courses that help women who have experienced trauma to rediscover their voice, learn to make good decisions for themselves, and make plans for their future.

Catherine House and Housing Choices – Coming together to do more for women

Since January 2021, Catherine House has been a member of the Housing Choices Group of Companies.  Housing Choices currently operates in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales. Each entity within the group structure shares board governance, executive management, finance, IT and People and Culture services, enabling cost efficiency, high levels of technical expertise, efficiency, replicability and scalability. 

Financial viability of each entity are critical to the success of the group structure.

Catherine House is part of the Housing Choices Supportive Services Directorate – supporting people to find a home, keep a home, and build a life.  

The 2024-29 Housing Choices Group strategy seeks to grow national reach and capability through replicating and building on existing successful state-based models. 

You can read more about Housing Choices at www.housingchoices.org.au