WUNRN
http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2014/mar/07/homeless-services-failing-women-st-mungos
UK
- Why Homeless Services Are Failing Women
Homeless services need more consideration for the special
problems experienced by women
Women do not
like being in a minority in mixed hostels as they can feel unsafe in
male-dominated environments. Photograph: MIXA /Alamy/Alamy
By Alexia
Murphy - 7 March 2014
Women make
up 26% of people who accessed homelessness services in 2013, which in real
numbers is around 10,000 people. At the sharpest end of homelessness, 786 women
were recorded sleeping rough in London last year. There are no figures on the
number of women sleeping rough nationally but the overall number of people
recorded sleeping rough has risen by 37% since 2010.
The true number is likely to be much higher.
Women may be sleeping on a friend's sofa or, worse, trapped in abusive
relationships because they have nowhere to go but do not want to become
homeless (half of homelessness charity St Mungo's
female clients have experienced domestic violence). Homeless women have many
complicated, interrelated problems contributing to their homelessness, which
are often rooted in trauma due to violence and abuse in childhood and then
adulthood.
Homeless services are predominantly developed by
and for men, because they make up the majority of clients. The women we work
with often enter services at a much later stage than men, and when their
problems have become more severe and enduring. As it stands, 70% of the women
we work with have mental health needs, compared with 57% of male clients. The
impact of this is that women are less emotionally or psychologically ready to
start tackling some incredibly complicated issues and moving on with their
lives.
Why don't current services necessarily work for
women? Our research has also found that women do not generally like being in a
minority in mixed hostels or housing projects as they can feel unsafe in
male-dominated environments, but also that services were not working from them
because staff were not trained to help their particular problems, for example,
support around self-harm or eating disorders. If women don't see services as
right for them, they won't come forward.
Women who have experienced domestic abuse may
find it much easier to talk to a woman key worker than a man but many do not
have that choice.
Female homeless people are also more than twice
as likely as men to have suffered abuse as a child. But staff who work in
homelessness services may well feel they lack the training to talk in greater
depth around the emotional and psychological needs that a woman resident may have
if they've experienced serious childhood abuse or trauma, or not know where to
refer women for help.
A further risk is that if a vulnerable women
flees domestic abuse and ends up in a mixed hostel where another incident of
abuse takes place, this counteracts any positive progress made in their
recovery. We need homelessness services staff to be trained and knowledgeable
on issues of domestic and sexual violence so they can provide safe spaces and
appropriate support.
What will help? Services working with women who
are homeless or at risk should incorporate features such as women-only spaces,
peer support and staff training on the specific challenges that women often
face. Councils should also identify a senior member of staff to lead on women
and homelessness, and commissioners should ensure women get a choice between
women-only and mixed gender services.
If we don't get the right help to women at the
right time, and coordinate preventative support around women's housing, mental
health, violence against women and girls, criminal justice and vulnerable
children, the risk is that more women will fall through the gap and end up
being passed from service to service and feeling like they are failing – when,
in actual fact, it is the services that are failing.