March 30th, 2025Community housing and… kindness
Affordable housing, spreading kindness, appreciating the great outdoors and peace. It’s a fairly compelling mix and it’s all part of what makes Daylesford’s Mary-Faeth Chenery tick.
Mary-Faeth is one of the newest inductees onto the Heather Mutimer Honour Roll, an accolade bestowed at the Hepburn Shire Council’s recent IWD event held in Trentham.
“For me it’s continuing to focus on kindness and inner peace and trying to radiate that to others,” she says as we chat about her volunteer contributions that led to this recent recognition.
Originally from North Carolina USA, Mary-Faeth retains the trace of a US accent. In her light-filled Daylesford home a Steinway grand piano is a family treasure and when quizzed she says that yes, she does play a little – “classical”.
Her little schnauzer-poodle cross dog named (Ellie in honour of Eleanor Roosevelt) snoozes alongside on the couch as we chat about the recent IWD honour, spirituality, community, and some of the challenges our world faces.
The IWD recognition in large part acknowledges Mary-Faeth’s ongoing leadership in striving to ensure affordable housing exists, particularly for the largest growing cohort of homeless Australians, older women.
Prior to “retiring” and shouldering her current voluntary roles, Mary-Faeth headed up the Department of Outdoor Education and Nature Tourism at La Trobe University in Bendigo.
She has a masters in management, a PhD in psychology and has studied theosophy and spiritual traditions and practices from around the globe.
Her work toward perpetuating global peace includes serving as a distinguished representative of Australia at numerous international events organised by the Global Peace Initiative of Women.
And, as co-founder and president of Older Women in Cohousing (WINC), Mary-Faeth has made great strides in addressing the housing security needs of older women, including older lesbians.
Under her leadership, WINC is now developing a project that will provide 31 new, small, sustainable and accessible homes within a mutually supportive community in nearby Castlemaine.
Since 2017, she has worked with her co-founder to establish the organisation, acquire the property, foster a community of older women and secure planning permission for this innovative “village”.
“We are now receiving interest from all over Australia and from the media,” says Mary-Faeth whose vision aims to help ensure older women experiencing financial hardship have the opportunity to live with dignity and agency.
She is also founding member and current president of Safe Place Homes, an incorporated society dedicated to alleviating housing challenges within the Hepburn Shire and beyond.
This work (all voluntary) has notably contributed to the inclusion of four social housing units as part of Daylesford’s Middleton Fields development.
Quietly honoured and humble in receiving her IWD honour, this well informed and erudite local pauses and reflects for a moment before thoughtfully answering the question I put to her: “how can anyone help make the world a better place in such troubled and troubling times?”
“Something my spiritual teacher Ananda Tara Shan said to me is ‘look for where the good is radiating and follow that’. That to me is a good approach.”
“And,” she adds, “I think it’s terribly important to listen to others.”
Words: Eve Lamb
