We must recognise homeless women in their own right, and fund services accordingly

Women are unseen, unheard and unprotected by a system designed and funded for men, writes Lucy Campbell, head of multiple disadvantage at the Single Homeless Project, as part of the Reset Homelessness campaign.

Since 2022, more than 2,000 women across England have shared their experiences through the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census, an annual action research project designed to better understand and reveal the scale of women who are sleeping rough.

The data presents a bleak picture. There are at least nine times as many women sleeping rough as government figures claim. And women have told us of the relentless dangers they face: rape, harassment and physical assault are everyday experiences. 

Here’s the truth: the very system meant to help women is failing them. Women tell us, repeatedly, that homelessness services aren’t built for them. Women are unseen, unheard and unprotected by a system designed and funded for men. 

When we put the Women’s Census data in front of government, they come back with headlines about their multimillion-pound homelessness programmes. But no amount of money will end homelessness unless we understand how women experience it. 

Take rough sleeping. Women’s rough sleeping is often hidden. Women walk all night, sit in A&E, or lock themselves in toilets to just to make it safely through the night. But because these experiences don’t fit the government’s narrow definition of rough sleeping, women slip through the cracks. They aren’t found by outreach teams. And they struggle to access rough sleeping-funded accommodation.

It’s no surprise that nearly half the women in the 2023 census weren’t in touch with homelessness services. Services aren’t designed for women. And until they are, those multimillion-pound programmes will keep failing the women who need them most. 

This inequity persists because frameworks to measure progress on ending rough sleeping, and government research initiatives to understand rough sleeping, ignore gender.

Take the 2020 rough sleeping questionnaire. Of 991 respondents, 82% were men. Why? Because the surveys were conducted in day centres and hostels – spaces overwhelmingly dominated by men. Then there’s the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Ending Rough Sleeping Data Framework, launched in May 2023. It doesn’t disaggregate data by gender, so there’s no way to know if interventions work for women.

The last government’s Ending Rough Sleeping for Good strategy admits that women are more hidden when sleeping rough, and need tailored interventions. 

But what does the strategy do about it? Almost nothing. No plans. No funding. Out of 100 pages, just two paragraphs mention women’s rough sleeping, while other groups – LGBTQI+ people, young people and non-UK nationals – get little more than a passing mention. This isn’t a strategy to end rough sleeping for everyone. It’s a strategy for British, heterosexual men. 

Women are not a ‘group’. They represent over half the population. And they’re disproportionately impacted by violence, abuse, multiple disadvantage and economic inequality. The assumption that women experience homelessness less than men isn’t based on fact but on the government’s failure to fund research into understanding the scale and nature of the problem.

Women aren’t just being failed by rough sleeping responses – they’re being locked out of statutory homelessness support, too. 

The system refuses to recognise the unique risks ‘single’ homeless women face, and they’re often deemed not vulnerable enough to qualify for help. The 2021 Domestic Abuse Act should have been a game-changer, ensuring survivors are given priority need. But housing legislation fails to account for the full spectrum of violence and abuse against women and girls (VAWG), even as reports of abuse spiral and police chiefs declare a national emergency. 

In practice this means that a woman stalked and harassed by a stranger isn’t considered vulnerable enough for priority housing. A woman forced into sex work to survive or raped while sleeping rough? Still not vulnerable enough.

Even recent innovations to understand ‘vulnerability’ fail to consider gender. The rough sleeping risk assessment tool, which councils are piloting to predict people’s likelihood of long-term rough sleeping, overlooks women completely.

The tool doesn’t mention VAWG or women-specific vulnerabilities such as recent pregnancy and child removal, and it prioritises those leaving prison – a 96% male population – over those leaving hospital or supported housing, so its dataset will be male-dominated.

For women who manage to access temporary accommodation or supported housing, safety and stability are far from guaranteed. A third of the women in the 2023 census had already been in some form of homelessness accommodation before falling back into rough sleeping.

Short-term, patchwork funding has trapped too many women in a relentless cycle of homelessness, shifting from one inadequate solution to another. As one census respondent said:  “I have experienced homelessness on and off for 30 years, and the system has failed me over and over.”

The new government has promised a cross-departmental strategy to end homelessness and pledged to halve violence against women in the next decade. 

Now, it has a choice. It can either stick to the same one-size-fits-men approach, funding generic initiatives that will leave women trapped in danger and invisibility. Or it can do what no government has done before: recognise women’s homelessness in its own right and fund it accordingly.

That means long-term, ringfenced funding to reconfigure homelessness systems and make them equitable, accessible and safe for women. It means tangible, cross-departmental action, tackling the link between homelessness and VAWG: in policy, in strategy, and with designated funding programmes. 

This government will not end homelessness unless it understands how it is experienced by half of the population. Talk of prevention is meaningless if the system remains rigged against women – if funding continues to be funnelled into two narrow silos: statutory homelessness (which currently excludes most single women) and visible rough sleeping (where men dominate the data). 

This isn’t just a funding issue. It’s systemic neglect. The question is: will this government finally step up?

Lucy Campbell, head of multiple disadvantage, Single Homeless Project 

You can read this article on Inside Housing here.