Agenda Alliance members launch the National Women's Rough Sleeping Census

Last week, Agenda Alliance member Solace Women’s Aid shared the National Women’s Rough Sleeping Census, in coalition with Single Homeless Project and London Councils. The census was launched with support from alliance member, Homeless Link.

In this guest blog, both organisations share key information on their work related to the census, highlighting why tackling women’s homelessness demands a gender-responsive strategy.

Building on 2023’s London Women’s Rough Sleeping Report, the National Women’s Rough Sleeping Census is the first national census into the scale of women’s homelessness.

Its results show women are likely to be significantly underrepresented in rough sleeping data, with the review estimating that there may be up to nine times as many women rough sleeping across England than the Government’s annual Rough Sleeping Snapshot suggests.

This is due to the fact that the Census uses a different methodology to the Government’s Snapshot, whereby a more inclusive definition and approach to engage women has led to greater numbers being identified.

The Census Report offers crucial testimony from women themselves as to why their experiences of homelessness are more hidden, and women sleeping rough are likely to be less identifiable to outreach workers.

It highlights the ‘hidden’ locations in which women reported sleeping and sheltering, including A&E waiting rooms, on buses or trains, in squats, walking around all night, and staying with strangers. None of these forms of rough sleeping are encompassed within the current government rough sleeping definition, meaning that women’s experiences are not recognised and their homelessness is less likely to be resolved.

The report offers difficult-to-ignore evidence that tackling women’s homelessness necessitates a gender-responsive strategy, and that without urgent action to address gender bias, women struggling with homelessness will continue to slip through the cracks.

Yet, even once women are in contact with services, they often aren’t able to access appropriate support. Homeless Link’s own research found that only 10% of homelessness accommodation services were women-only, with the majority being mixed gender. These services, which are designed around the experiences of men, are less likely to have the knowledge and experience necessary to meet the needs of women.

As the national membership body for organisations working across England to end homelessness, Homeless Link have worked to produce guidance and tools to support improvements to services.

This includes the ‘Gendered Lens Framework’ for frontline practitioners, which explains an understanding of the impact of gender on experiences of homelessness is essential for tailoring support for women, and offers seven approaches to guide service design and delivery.

To inform the framework, they ran workshops to understand the experiences of women who are, or have been, homeless. These women’s testimony echoes the findings of the National Census, with women sharing they felt significant stigma and the weight of difference:

One woman highlighted that it was only when she experienced domestic abuse that she was able to access support through pathways to the women’s sector:

Addressing the experiences of women such as these will require collaborative working and sharing of specialist knowledge across the homelessness and women’s sectors. Only through working closely together can services develop their understanding of women’s needs and be able to offer appropriate support to women experiencing homelessness as and when they need it.