Community · The Forgotten Women · August 2026
Glitter Balls, Bingo Calls, And Women Who Deserve A Home.
On Saturday 29 August we’re throwing Glitter Balls and Bingo Calls, a drag bingo fundraiser at Club Manly in Manly, Brisbane, to raise money for The Forgotten Women, and we’d love you there. Grab a table, bring your loudest bingo voice, and help put a roof over the head of an older woman who has lost hers.
Hosted by Ideal Buyer’s Agency, on our home turf in the Bayside.
“Helping people into homes is our whole reason for being. So it sits heavily with us that in our own city, a growing number of older women are quietly losing theirs. This is our way of doing something about it.“
The Reality
The Fastest-Growing Face Of Homelessness
Women over 55 are now the fastest-growing group of people becoming homeless in Australia. Not through any failing of their own, but through a lifetime of lower pay, unpaid caring, and a system that was never built with them in mind.
Figures: The Forgotten Women and Mangrove Housing. Older women over 55 are Australia’s fastest-growing homeless cohort.
The Cause
The Forgotten Women
Founded by Mangrove Community Homes in 2018, The Forgotten Women provides secure, safe, affordable housing so women over 55 can age in place, in the communities they have always known, without the fear of losing their home.
It is a grassroots initiative built on a simple idea: buy and build the homes, top up the rent where it is needed, and let these women grow older with stability and dignity. And it runs right here in the bayside, on our doorstep.
Why It Matters
Everyone Deserves To Age Somewhere Safe
Homelessness does not always look the way people picture it. For a lot of older women it is a car in a quiet street, a spare room that ran out, or a lease that could not be renewed. It is often invisible, and that is part of why it goes unaddressed.
The reasons are rarely what people assume. A lifetime of lower pay and unpaid caring work leaves women retiring with around 40 percent less superannuation than men. Add a widowhood, a separation, or a single rent increase, and a woman who did everything right can find herself with nowhere to live.
The Forgotten Women exists to change that, one secure home at a time. Every dollar raised goes toward keeping a woman housed, settled, and able to grow older with the dignity everyone is owed.
We have picked this cause because it sits right at the heart of what we do all day, and because it is happening right here, in the community we call home.
How To Get Involved
Two Ways To Help
Come and have a laugh with us, chip in from home, or do both. Every bit goes to the same place.
Glitter Balls and Bingo Calls
A glamorous drag bingo afternoon at Club Manly. Multiple rounds of bingo hosted by a fabulous drag performer, prizes, raffles, and a whole lot of fun for a serious cause. Dress up, gather your friends, and book a table. Payment plans are available if that helps.
Book Your TableThe Live Like Her Sleep-Out
Our team is sleeping in a car for a night in the Live Like Her Challenge, to feel a fraction of what too many women live every night, and to raise awareness and funds. We are aiming for $5,000. Donations over $2 are tax deductible, with a receipt sent straight to your inbox.
Donate NowThe Details
Glitter Balls and Bingo Calls: The Drag Bingo Fundraiser
Everything you need to know before you book your table.
Expect multiple rounds of drag bingo, prizes and raffles, and a warm, welcoming room full of people there for the same reason. Bring cash for the raffles, bring your friends, and bring your loudest bingo voice. Every ticket and every prize goes toward housing women who need it.
Our team on the Live Like Her sleep-out, a night in the car for the women who spend every night in one.
This is the fourth year running that the Ideal Buyer’s Agency team has pulled on the beanie, climbed into the car, and slept the night for The Forgotten Women. Four years of the same stubborn belief: that no woman who spent her life caring for everyone else should spend her last years without a door to lock behind her.
Every year the challenge grows, and every year it stays just as uncomfortable, which is exactly the point. One cold night is nothing next to what these women carry. It is the least we can do, and we will keep doing it.
Why We’re Doing This
We spend our working lives getting people into homes they love. That makes it impossible to look away from the people in our own city who are quietly losing theirs, especially older women who spent decades caring for everyone else and are now the fastest-growing group facing homelessness in the country.
A cause about home belongs to a business about home. Glitter Balls and Bingo Calls is the joyful end of that, and the sleep-out is the serious end, but both point the same way: toward a few more women getting to grow older somewhere safe. Come for the bingo, stay for the reason, and help us keep a roof over the head of a woman who has earned one. Thank you, from all of us at Ideal Buyer’s Agency.
Grab A Table, Or Chip In From Home
Saturday 29 August, Club Manly. Book your table for the bingo, or back our sleep-out with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar helps house a woman who has been forgotten.
