5.1.6 Access to housing Stateless people interviewed for this Project spoke of their longing to buy a house, with property viewed as a measure of security. Some stateless people interviewed spoke of their inability to own land in their country of origin, and their prohibition from buying a home in Australia (in some cases, despite working hard to save a deposit) due to their visa conditions. “My family can’t buy any house or land to live on in Bangladesh because they say we – the Rohingya people – don’t belong there. Yet I can’t buy a home here in Australia either as I’ve only ever held a temporary visa. I’ve been saving money but it is no use. I long to buy a home for my family here.” — Nasir* 5.2 A feeling of “stuck-ness:” Lost time and lost lives Stateless people interviewed for this Report spoke of feeling “stuck” or like they live in limbo, particularly when they have a ‘transitory’ legal status with no prospect of resolution. Stateless participants described engaging in multiple attempts to resolve their status (often over many years) with no clear pathway to permanency or naturalisation in what one interviewee described as ‘visa insecurity’. This feeling of limbo and uncertainty is exacerbated by the constant assessment and reassessment of somebody���s statelessness status, in the absence of an SDP. Those on bridging visas or in the “transitory cohort” reported experiencing these feeling acutely. “Everyone needs a clear pathway and plan; some form of certainty. When you are stateless, you’ve always been uncertain about your life. You are looking for certainty. Uncertainty makes you feel unwell. People seeking asylum and waiting for the outcome of their protection application need to have some sort of positive engagement with the government. We’re still human. We have dignity, we can learn. We are not ‘less than’.” — Amir Australian legal practitioners interviewed for this Project also reported witnessing this sense of ongoing legal limbo with their clients, over many years. “I mean it’s a very harrowing experience even when you do have work rights or study rights. The visa insecurity is top of mind for most clients. It really impacts their mental health, their ability to engage in all of the aspects of their life to settle down here.” — Michaela Rhode, Australian Legal Practitioner, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Other legal practitioners observed the impact delays and uncertainty have on stateless people’s decisions to delay starting families. “I think it’s held them back because they haven’t had the same opportunities as others that have been able to obtain citizenship quickly. And it’s clearly also a lot of males now that are in their late 30’s/early 40’s who haven’t even been able to have a family or marry or anything like that as a result.” — Carina Ford, Australian Legal Practitioner, Carina Ford Immigration Lawyers ‘Transitory people’ are prohibited from applying for any form of visa in Australia. The only way they can overcome this prohibition is if the Minister exercises his or her personal discretion to allow them to do so—something that happens very rarely. As at 31 August 2025, there were 807 ‘transitory persons’ in Australia including 126 children.103 Understanding Statelessness in Australia | Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness 59