Where From? Where Now?

Women & Homelessness

• 12% rough sleepers seen in London are women[1]
• 29% of single homeless people with support needs are women[2]
• 95% of female rough sleepers have been victims of crime[3]
• More than one in five homeless women have been in prison[4]

“Women’s needs are very different to men’s when they are on the street. The way to build trust and help recovery needs a completely different approach. They might have experienced exactly the same thing as a man: they may both have lost children; they may both have lost homes from relationship breakdowns; or been in care or been abused. But women don’t feel they are worthy. It’s hard to generalise, but they’re guilt-ridden by their choices. They don’t want to talk in the same way that men will. On any given day, [the majority] will be in co-dependent relationships. They are always with somebody. Getting them by themselves and being able to do meaningful work is very tricky. Women are definitely the minority and hard to reach.”Kath Sims, Manager of St Mungo’s Westminster Outreach Team

“Not every single male client and every single female client fall into this pattern but on the whole I’ve found that male clients are more open to receiving help and often feel that they deserve it – which they absolutely do. Female clients seem to feel that they are undeserving of the help or that they shouldn’t need it and should be more self-sufficient. That means it’s a lot harder to make the initial connection and we have to break through a harder exterior that they’ve put up because of rough sleeping or domestic violence or substance use. They can be harder to reach.”Kate John, Activities Development Worker, St Mungo’s

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 at 10:05 pm. It is filed under background. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.