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Women
This page is about women and homelessness. Homeless women who are pregnant and/or have children are in priority need for rehousing. Women with no dependant children in their care who do not wish to stay in the family home (or are unable to due to violence, relationship breakdown, etc) have limited housing options open to them, unless they can are considered vulnerable by the local authority.
What’s New?
- Findings from Our Survey of Needs and Provision related to women , including the proportion of homelessness services with specialist support aimed at women.
- Spotlight on Women - notes from our March 2007 event looking at good practice in meeting the needs of women experiencing homelessness.
- Crisis has published a new report on women and homelessness Homeless Women: still being failed yet striving to survive
- The Lilith Project has recently written a report on women’s hostels in London entitled "A Women’s Place: Women and Hostel Provision in London". This found that 90% of hostels had no policy on dealing with violence against women and in many cases had a poor understanding of issues such as eating disorders and self-harm. The most significant finding was the need for women-only hostels.
The Issues
There is a relative lack of recent information focusing specifically on the characteristics and causes of women’s homelessness, their experiences, and their needs and preferences.
For a good introduction to women and homelessness see the 1999 Crisis/CHP Report , Out of Sight Out of Mind? and for gender and homelessness see Homelessness: what's gender got to do with it? (Shelter, 2002), and Watson S. with Austerberry H. 1986, ‘Housing and Homelessness: A Feminist Perspective’ (Routledge).
Family Homelessness
The vast majority of homeless families are headed by women, due to the links between domestic violence, relationship breakdown and homelessness. As Shelter has shown, family homelessness has obvious effects on women and their children’s health and well-being. See CPHVA and ODPM 2005, The Vital Link: Preventing Family Homelessness.
Health Action for Homeless People (Crisis; 1999) released a report entitled ‘Forgotten Mothers’, which highlighted difficulties of homeless mothers who had lost their children to the care system.
Single Homeless Women
Although a significant proportion of women who are homeless are single, many hostels may not be suitable for single women. The 2000 report Can’t See: Won’t See provides a comprehensive look into single women and homelessness and won a CRASH award.
Sexual violence and Domestic violence
A key cause for homelessness in women is domestic violence. See http Davis 2003, ‘Rehousing Women Leaving Domestic Violence: New Challenges and Good Practice’, (Policy Press) or Buck 2002, ‘Repeat Homelessness and Domestic Abuse’, (Shelter Scotland) for more information. Experiences of older women and domestic abuse are increasingly becoming more blatant, as well as the need for a gendered analysis of elder abuse (see Imogen Blood ‘Older Women and Domestic Violence’ (Help the Aged). The Lilith Project's ‘A Woman’s Place’ 2005 highlights issues surrounding sexual violence and harassment, which both contribute to and aggravate women’s homelessness.
Mental Illness
This report highlights the experiences and needs of homeless women with mental illness, Parry-Crooke G. and Croft-White C., ‘Double Exposure’ (The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health; 1996). It points out that there are very few hostels, which cater specifically for homeless women with mental illness.
Sex Workers
See Moss J. and King S., ‘Prostitution: How women sleep rough’, (Potteries Housing; 2001). See also The Poppy Project for more details on sex trafficking.