“Our stories are different but our situations are the same”: gendered experiences finding housing

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the gendered nature of housing insecurity by investigating how gender affects women’s experience moving from transitional to market housing. By describing women’s pathways out of supportive or transitional housing support, the authors show how patriarchal forces in housing policies and practices affect women’s efforts to find secure housing. The authors argue that gender-neutral approaches to housing will fail to meet women’s needs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study explores the narratives from women accessing support services in Halifax, Canada. The first author conducted deep narrative interviews with women seeking to move from transition to market housing.

Findings

This research sheds light on the effects of gendered barriers to safe, suitable and affordable housing; how women’s experiences and expectations are shaped by these barriers; and, how housing-based supports must address the uniquely gendered experiences women face as they access market housing. In addition, this research reveals the importance of gender-responsive services that empower women facing a sexist housing market.

Originality/value

Little research has explored questions related to gender and housing among those seeking to move from transitional to marker housing, and existing research focuses on women’s housing insecurity as it relates to domestic violence. The sample of women included those having housing insecurity for a variety of reasons, including substance use and young motherhood.

Citation

Crocker, D. and Dej, E. (2024), "“Our stories are different but our situations are the same”: gendered experiences finding housing", Housing, Care and Support, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/HCS-11-2021-0033

Introduction

Housing insecurity is not a gender-neutral problem. The causes and experiences differ for women and gender diverse people and men (Kennett and Wah, 2011; Nelson et al., 2023; Schwan et al., 2020) [1]. Men often find themselves unhoused due to a lack of affordable housing, health problems and criminal justice involvement (Bretherton, 2017). Women face many of these challenges, in addition to housing insecurity, when they have experienced trauma and/or leave violent relationships (Broll and Huey, 2017; Schwan et al., 2021). Poverty lies at the root of housing insecurity for both men and women but poverty is experienced in a gendered way (Fox and Moyser, 2018). Racialized women experience poverty at higher rates than white women (Walsh et al., 2011; Whitzman, 2006) and Indigenous women’s poverty is rooted in settler-colonial policies and practices (Kidd et al., 2013; Razack, 2016; Tait, 2013).

Gender inequity reverberates in women’s experiences of both housing insecurity and their efforts to find housing. Patriarchal forces in housing policies and practices are rarely visible (Bretherton, 2017). The research reported in this paper makes these forces visible, exploring how gender affects women’s experiences moving from transitional to market housing. Our research also reveals the importance of gender-responsive services that empower women facing a sexist housing market by examining how they address the gendered nature of the transition from supportive to market housing.

In light of Canada’s National Housing Strategy (NHS), our findings highlight pitfalls in how the Strategy has framed a gendered analysis of housing insecurity. Even the NHS’s efforts to encourage gendered approaches to housing will fall short by not addressing the pathways that women follow to become more housing secure and the barriers that they encounter along the way:

This article explores narratives from people who identify as women accessing services from four agencies in Nova Scotia, Canada [2] [3]. One agency works with women who have left violent relationships. Another houses young mothers without shelter. Two agencies provide shared housing for women recovering from addictions, in one case, or transitioning to the community after being incarcerated, in the other. All the agencies provide supportive, safe and affordable transitional housing, ranging from months to years but the women’s situations leading them to be housing insecure are different.

The women’s experiences included in this article emphasize the gendered nature of the pathway from supportive to market housing. Our research echoes other work showing gendered barriers to women’s ability to access housing (Schwan et al., 2020, 2021; van Berkum and Oudshoorn, 2015). Building from this scholarship, our research sheds new light on these barriers, how women’s experiences and expectations are shaped by their gender, and how housing-based supports must reflect the uniquely gendered context of women’s experiences transitioning to market housing. Our research looks at a very particular place on the housing pathway when they are moving, or preparing to move, out of second stage or transitional housing. To date, little research explores the experience of this particular group, with notable exceptions (Fotheringham et al., 2014; Phipps et al., 2022).

Our research includes voices of women fleeing domestic violence, recovering from addictions, transitioning from prison to the community and young mothers. The inclusion of this diverse group makes our research unique. Our focus on these women’s pathways from transition to market housing shows that we need policy and programs that address the gendered experience rather than focusing only on specific subgroups of women. As our title suggests, the women’s stories are different but their situations are the same. Our research has used the women’s voices to identify specific ways gender stymies their efforts to secure permanent housing and how these experiences are not adequately reflected in policy.

Gender and housing policies

A growing scholarship reveals the absence of gender in housing policies (Burnett et al., 2015; Little, 2015; Westendorp, 2007). Our scan of policies from across Canada shows that few address specific populations. Several focus on Indigenous populations and seniors but only five Canadian provinces have specific policies related to gender, most of which focus on emergency shelters and women fleeing domestic violence. Most policies are gender-neutral.

Schwan et al. (2020, 2021) identified seven structural and systematic barriers to women’s ability to access housing: lack of women-specific housing and supports, poverty and economic inequalities, discrimination in the housing market and emergency shelter systems, intimate partner and gender-based violence, disproportionate childcare responsibilities, underfunded and overwhelmed emergency shelter systems and gendered gaps in emergency services. As a result, we see limited affordable housing geared toward single women without dependent children (Nemiroff et al., 2010), and this gap exacerbates the situation for women who have children, especially when escaping violence (Gulliver-Garcia, 2016). These housing challenges, as well as disjointed policies and procedures between homeless-serving, child-welfare agencies and the criminal justice system, leave women vulnerable to losing custody of their children, because they do not have secure housing (Schwan et al., 2020).

Women who were victims of childhood physical and sexual abuse (Green et al., 2012; Reid et al., 2021) and intimate partner violence (IPV) face a high risk of housing instability and homelessness (Broll and Huey, 2017). One study found that women who experience IPV are four times more likely to be precariously housed than women who do not (Keefe and Hahn, 2021; Pavao et al., 2007; Rivas-Rivero et al., 2021). This occurs because of structural factors, such as lack of affordable and social housing, women’s barriers to education and employment and capacity issues facing services geared towards women escaping violence, especially in rural communities (Burnett et al., 2016; Kidd et al., 2013; Mayock et al., 2016). Women face victimization while couch surfing or staying in emergency shelters (Reid et al., 2021). For this reason, some women facing homelessness stay in violent relationships to avoid homeless-serving systems (Watson, 2011, 2016; Schwan et al., 2021).

With that said, focusing exclusively on women being “at-risk” of housing inequity individualizes the issue and detracts from seeing that gender-neutral approaches underpin housing and social systems (Kennett and Wah, 2011). Gender-responsive and trauma-informed supports acknowledge factors that contextualize women’s lives, including trauma from childhood abuse or various forms of gender-based violence; focus on well-being; and recognize the importance of relationships and connectedness. Gender-responsive housing supports focus on women’s sense of safety, provide spaces to access support, allow people to have choice, foster a sense of empowerment, prioritize safety and respect and provide a holistic range of supports (Kirkby and Mettler, 2016; Reid et al., 2021). This approach recognizes the impact that trauma has on women’s physical, mental and emotional health. Services that engage in gender-responsive, trauma-informed practices are nonjudgmental and sensitive to how women cope with trauma (Kirkby and Mettler, 2016) and emphasize supportive and collaborative relationships between people who deliver services and women who use those services (Reid et al., 2021). Gender-responsive housing programs have demonstrated their ability to help women find and maintain secure housing in part because of their impact in improving women’s self-confidence, interpersonal skills, health and resilience (Fotheringham et al., 2014; Kirkby and Mettler, 2016; Reid et al., 2021).

This article contributes to the bourgeoning literature on women’s experiences finding and maintaining housing. Mayock and Sheridan (2020, p. 20) point out that while a strong body of research has emerged about women’s experiences of homelessness, “far less is known about the paths that women take through and out of homelessness.” Recent scholarship has pointed to the lack of community integration and psychological and social well-being for women who are housed, especially as it concerns issues of safety, harassment, ongoing poverty and health challenges (Bassi et al., 2020). Women who have experienced homelessness and are transitioning to housing have higher incidences of mental health challenges and suicide attempts than men who have experienced homelessness (Milaney et al., 2020; Rodriguez-Moreno et al., 2021), which has spurred researchers to call for increased gender-responsive and trauma-informed supports when women transition to housing. Our research shows both the value of these suggestions and how women’s pathways to housing security are impacted in the presence and absence of these kinds of considerations.

Research methods

In 2017, as part of the Home for Good project, the first author interviewed 22 women who had used the services offered by at least one of the partner agencies, as well as two staff. The agencies all work in Nova Scotia, Canada. The women interviewed were in the process of, or had recently transitioned from, limited-term housing to market or public housing.

The agencies supported the research by recruiting participants. They identified women who, in their view, would be interested in participating. They told their clients about the research and provided the researcher’s contact information. Many women never reached out. The researcher kept information about who participated confidential. Interviews were conducted in locations that suited the participant. Some happened in their homes, others in coffee shops and other took place at community centers or offices of various nonprofit service providers.

The interviews were guided by the principles of narrative research that focus on gathering people’s stories, rather than their opinions. The first author developed an unstructured interview guide to solicit women’s housing stories using prompts to uncover details about what happened, who was involved and how the participant felt along the way. The opening question invited women to describe what they had done to find a place to live. The narrative nature of the interviews aimed to gather detailed experiences of women’s experiences and what happened while they were in supportive and what happened when they were looking for either market or public housing.

The first author analyzed the interview transcripts following principles and practices described by Wolcott (1994). The analysis began descriptively (How did research participants describe their experiences seeking housing?). The next step involved analytic thinking about the data (What patterns emerged from their experiences?). The final step was interpretive (What do the patterns tell us about the women’s experiences?).

To enhance validity, confirm themes and make sense of the findings, the first author hosted member-checking meetings with several women interviewed and others who fit the criteria for inclusion in the research. Participants reviewed anonymized excerpts from interviews and provided their understanding of what the excerpts meant and how they reflected their own experiences. Each excerpt represented a specific experience and the workshop participants explored what each excerpt was about (the topic) and what the excerpt was revealing about the topic (the theme). Agency staff participated in a similar workshop.

Everyone interviewed identified as a woman, and most identified as heterosexual and white. Most were in their 20s and 30s, and many had small children. Most had experience in either or both the criminal justice system and family court. The demographics represent, to a large extent, the demographics of the women served by the agencies that supported this research at the time the research was done. These agencies had funding for a project, and this research was part of that funding, so the researcher could not seek out other agencies to help recruit a more diverse population [4]. The lack of diversity, particularly related to race, limits our ability to think intersectionally about the experiences we document. Having said that, the women interviewed came from agencies that address different routes into housing insecurity. While the research cannot address issues related to race or gender identity, it does reveal common themes among women whose housing situation was precarious for a variety of reasons. Rodriguez-Moreno et al. (2021) remind us that gender, social exclusion, housing precarity and homelessness exist in a complex interaction that cannot be separated from one another. As we explore below, women’s unique gendered experiences of housing need, along with their biography, trauma, skills and interests, are all intimately woven together to shape their needs and priorities.

Gendered experiences with transitional housing

The women interviewed for this project described positive experiences in transitional housing programs, offering women a way to avoid or exit homelessness. The agencies provided a much-needed reprieve from domestic violence, poverty and unsafe neighborhoods. The women felt welcomed, supported and empowered:

Moving in here was a good thing. We finally had our own space again, our own home again. It was really good after living with somebody else [family member] for a year. It was good to be in our own place and be us again.

I spent the last four years fighting my way through school as a single parent and dealing with landlord problems. I am not ready to start fighting again.

But the interviews also revealed that the help went beyond solving practical problems. The services were gender-responsive and trauma-informed. For some women, the fact that the agencies work exclusively with people who identify as women was helpful – several talked about having learned from other women. Many had been in abusive relationships with men, making a “woman-centered” space a much appreciated and needed space of safety. Others in substance use treatment felt that the peer support of other women was helpful. Young mothers living in housing together learned parenting strategies from each other.

Trauma-informed care and gender-responsive spaces are essential to creating safe and comfortable environments for women to recover and gain the confidence to become fully independent in their housing (Lewinson et al., 2014; Milaney et al., 2020; Phipps et al., 2021; Reid et al., 2021). As one woman interviewed stated:

I will miss here but it will make me feel more independent. I will be buying my own groceries with the help of my partner, and can come and go as I please. I don’t have to call in no more, and come back for curfew […] You get a little bit of freedom here but you don’t have whole freedom.

The service providers’ recognition of how gender impacts experiences of poverty and housing instability provided an avenue to build independence in a safe environment, although some restrictions remain. Many of the women interviewed had never lived on their own or made major decisions for themselves making the journey toward independence difficult for some:

We don’t know how to get out there and talk to people and figure out things about how the system and subsidized housing and day care and who can reach out to, and how we can transition, and what we need.

Something as simple as choosing their own food took on new meaning for the women interviewed as they struggled to carve out their own space in the world: “I didn’t even know how I liked my eggs cooked. Or my potatoes. I always let him [my ex] make the decisions”.

The emotional labor required to devise plans to move into housing is extreme for many women who have faced trauma and continue to experience precarity. Women’s experiences of homelessness, trauma and abuse can impact their sense of autonomy and ability to make decisions based on their needs and wishes (Phipps et al., 2021). Supportive, gender-responsive agencies can alleviate some of these anxieties. The women interviewed reflected on these points:

More and more each day I feel a little more confident about life and with being safe and looking out for those red flags that we talked about in class and self-worth and knowing that I am important too.

[The program] taught me a lot about myself. That I am capable of doing this. That I am a lot stronger than what I thought. Life isn’t that scary.

I would like to feel like I am able to stand on my own two feet when I walk out of here. I want to feel stable. I don’t need to have it all. I just want to have a roof over my head and feel safe, and have food and feel like a normal family, loving. It sounds so simple but it is so hard to do.

Gendered experiences in seeking housing

Safety was a primary concern for women who were transitioning to market or public housing, especially among those with children who have concerns about specific neighborhoods and security features of housing (Haley et al., 2017). One woman vocalized the importance of neighborhood in feeling safe:

I do not want to be living in an area that I am going to feel worried about. I want to feel secure in an area, with a nice neighbourhood, so that I can send my daughter to a school that I know is properly managed […] I just want to make sure I am feeling comfortable.

Other women felt unsafe in affordable housing: “The people in my building terrify me”. Many of the women interviewed felt safe in transitional housing:

[My daughter] always tells me how safe we are in our big house […] When cops drive by, she says “oh they must be going to get him [my ex].” I say “oh my gosh, we are safe. Our house is safe” I have pointed out the cameras to her, and the security systems and how the house works and who keeps us safe.

Women’s sense of safety was eroded by their gendered experiences of violence. The women interviewed had safety concerns about particular neighborhoods. Those leaving violent relationships wanted distance between them and their abuser but almost all the women interviewed expressed safety concerns about where they could afford to rent. They wanted security doors, cameras and supportive building managers.

Several women struggled with what their circumstances might say about them as a person or how their identity and experiences do not align. Some felt shame about the kind of places they lived in. One woman described her struggles with eliminating pests from her apartment. Her story about pushing the landlord to act had as much to do with how she did not see herself as someone who would live in a building that had bugs. A few women explicitly struggled with their identities as “addicts,” “victims” or “welfare moms.” The circumstances that brought them to transitional housing led them to question what it meant to take on this new identity:

It took me six to 12 months to even admit to myself that this was a domestic violence situation […] I struggle with the word victim a lot because that was used in counselling quite often. They were like “you were a victim” but it’s like I don’t feel like a victim.

The quote resonates with research that documents how IPV affect women’s sense of self as they come to see themselves as a “victim.” How the system responds to the resulting trauma, poverty and housing insecurity fails to provide empowering counter narratives. Women who have escaped violence describe the long and difficult process of having to transform themselves from a “decomposed state” into a new identity built on self-awareness and self-love. This process is rarely linear and is almost always painful (Matheson et al., 2015, p. 567).

The women we interviewed echoed these observations in their encounters with landlords. Some asked too many personal questions driven by gendered stereotypes:

I went to one place and the [landlord] […] kept asking me “so there is no man? You don’t have a man?” I kept saying “no” and she was saying “well what would you do if you need to fix this? What would you do if you need to fix that?”

Other research has found that landlords can be intrusive and disrespect women’s personal boundaries and privacy (Collins et al., 2018; Mayock and Sheridan, 2020). But the experience recounted here reveals the overtly gendered nature of these encounters. Women’s identity as head of household or single renter is questioned by landlords who lean on antiquated stereotypes of family composition and women’s independence from men.

Another woman described meeting a landlord and chatting about the local center for women with substance use challenges. The landlord talked about the good work the agency did. The woman described what happened next when she told the landlord that she had been a resident:

Just the look on her face when she clued in that I was not staff and that I was a resident, you could just see how it changed […] By the end of it she said “I don’t think this building is a fit for you. We are very quiet. Most people here work”.

This woman’s rejection as a tenant points to how women are vilified not only deviating from social norms but also for breaking the norms of femininity. Watson (2016) referred to “vicarious physical capital” to describe the unique oppression women face while homeless, where they experience reduced social status and vulnerability. Watson describes the alignment of neoliberal and postfeminist discourses that position women’s homelessness as an individual failing rather than the dominant socio-cultural and systemic ideology that minimizes women’s experiences of violence (Watson, 2016). These gender stereotypes make it difficult for women to find safe, stable, and permanent housing and undermines their sense of self-worth. Women face significant discrimination in the private rental market, especially when they are perceived as living in poverty, receiving social assistance and caring for children. Some discrimination is overt, such as the quote above, whereas others are opaque, such as requiring cosigners or guarantors. This discrimination is experienced intersectionally for Indigenous and racialized women seeking housing (Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, 2022; Little, 2015).

Discussion

The experiences uncovered in this research show how gendered experiences of motherhood and violence frame women’s efforts to find secure housing. In some cases, the gendered nature of women’s experiences were obvious. For example, IPV and abuse leaves a legacy of trauma. The housing system is not designed to protect people from danger despite women’s housing insecurity that is shrouded in abuse and danger. In other cases, the gendered dynamics were more nuanced. For example, even if the women were not fleeing domestic violence, their experiences of male dominance affected their ability to see themselves as independent. Interactions with landlords reinforced their concerns about their identity as “welfare mom” or “addict.” The women interviewed wanted gender-responsive and trauma-informed responses regardless of how they ended up needing housing support.

The women in this research had generally positive experiences with transitional housing agency programs that serve people who identify as women. These agencies explicitly aim to meet women’s needs. Conversely, the women faced negative encounters with landlords and property managers who seemed, far too often, to draw on negative, sexist stereotypes (Watson, 2016). Other than transitional housing programs, none of the women talked about any other services specifically aimed at supporting women to find secure housing or any of the factors that may make that possible (e.g. employment services).

In recent years, the Canadian Government has acknowledged the relevance of gender-based analysis to policymaking. The 2017 National Housing Strategy included a gendered analysis of housing problems, legislating housing as a human right. The Strategy includes a full chapter devoted to gender and commits at least 25% of investments to target the needs of women and girls. The strategy aims to have a “particularly positive impact on women” (Ministry of Families Children and Social Development, 2017, p. 24).

The National Housing Strategy aspires to address some of the issues raised in this research and by others in the field. And this promise has value. The question that remains relates to how these funds will be mobilized and ultimately how the work plays out on the ground (Schwan and Ali, 2021). One aspect of operationalization that concerns us, given what we learned in this research, is making only women fleeing domestic violence a priority population. This priority acknowledges men’s violence against women as a main cause of women’s housing insecurity (Keefe and Hahn, 2021; Pavao et al., 2007; Rivas-Rivero et al., 2021). But prioritizing in this way risks providing support only to those women who fit the image of an ideal victim. And it overlooks the fact that women-led households are more likely to be in housing need than men-led households (Haley et al., 2017; Schwan et al., 2020).

At the same time, women who are homeless or housing insecure and are not eligible to access violence against women services, for example, because they did not come directly from a violent household, have older children or have not recently experienced violent victimization, also require support (Baker et al., 2003). A US study revealed that women who identify as victims of sexual or emotional abuse are less likely to be able to access shelter services than women who identify as victims of physical abuse (Grossman and Lundy, 2011). Research has shown that “proving” abuse has been a barrier to women’s ability to access services (Tutty et al., 2013). Focusing housing support on agencies that address domestic violence addresses only one way that housing insecurity is gendered. This approach will overlook the ways our research showed the similarity of the gendered experience regardless of whether a woman’s route to housing insecurity was violence, addictions or criminalization.

While the gender-based analysis that makes up the National Housing Strategy has the potential to shift the landscape in this area, it is unclear at this time if the legislation has the teeth to do so, and in the meantime, women continue to face tremendous stumbling blocks in navigating systems that were not built for them (Schwan and Ali, 2021). Our research lends support to this concern, showing women’s pathways to secure housing are impeded in similar ways, notwithstanding what particular experience led them there. Our research shows that women’s stories are different, but their situations are the same, and the NHS seems to assume that only some kinds of stories need a gendered response.

Conclusion

The housing system was not designed to address the gendered aspects of women’s experiences. While the system faces a deficit of suitable, affordable housing for anyone living in poverty, the gendered nature of women’s experiences has not been built into the system. Furthermore, the system is no doubt unresponsive to the specific needs of underserved communities (e.g. 2SLGBTQ+, newcomers, racialized people and Indigenous people).

The National Housing Strategy and its prioritization of women’s homelessness and housing challenges act as a pivotal social and political moment where the landscape of women’s homelessness can be significantly improved. This could not come at a more important time. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated women’s poverty, housing instability and IPV (Dej, 2020) and made the issue of women’s housing more pressing than ever. As the national right to housing becomes operationalized over the course of the next few years, it will be essential that researchers, advocates, allies and women with lived expertise continue to hold politicians and policymakers to account. Specifically, research will need to evaluate the success of policies and practices implemented under the National Housing Strategy to address women’s unique circumstances and barriers. Embedded in this research should be a focus on women’s pathways to housing security and the barriers they face along the way. It will also be important to document and analyze how these changes impact women in diverse social locations, including Indigenous, black and racialized, 2SLGBTQ+, gender-diverse, newcomers, disabled and other women. This research should move away from supporting a deficit mode and instead focus on how using self-determination theory within a strengths-based model can support women’s sense of competence, confidence and autonomy (Phipps et al., 2021). As our research shows, empowerment will be key to women’s ability to feel more comfortable in their housing search.

Most research on women’s housing insecurity focuses on women leaving domestic violence (Burnett et al., 2015; Little, 2015; Tutty et al., 2013) or living in emergency transition shelters (Burnett et al., 2015; Gordon et al., 2022; Lako et al., 2018). We have included voices of women fleeing domestic violence, recovering from substance use challenges, transitioning from prison to the community and young women with babies. The inclusion of this diverse group makes this research unique, but the women we interviewed all face similar challenges navigating the housing system. Our research uses women’s voices to identify specific gendered ways their efforts to secure permanent housing are stymied. In this way, our approach differs from other research by showing how women’s pathways to housing insecurity are gendered. Our research explores the gendered nature of their efforts to recover from housing insecurity rather than how they became homeless.

Our research highlights the need for a well-coordinated system of housing solutions designed to address the gender-specific experiences of women. This would be a first step toward ensuring a system designed to meet other groups’ needs, including immigrants, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ population, racialized groups and Indigenous communities. For example, as the Housing First model, which provides immediate, barrier-free access to housing and wrap-around supports to those experiencing homelessness, has transformed the landscape in Canada, we are only beginning to understand how the model is experienced by women, who are more likely to be part of the hidden homeless and who require unique and tailored supports (Bassi et al., 2020; Milaney et al., 2020; O’Campo et al., 2023). A gender-based analysis of our data suggests that if women’s needs are not able to be met, the system will remain unsuited to addressing any marginalized groups’ specific experiences. Research shows that women without access to appropriate housing and ongoing financial and social support are at risk of cycling in and out of homelessness indefinitely (Mayock and Sheridan, 2020). Incorporating a gender-based framework into policy creates flexibility in the system that would be more responsive to other underserved groups.

The narratives women shared demonstrate that the stakes are high. Finding safe and affordable housing keeps them from going back to abusive relationships, gives them a fighting chance at avoiding relapse into addictions and provides their children with some sense of security. A gender-neutral housing system cannot meet these challenges.

Notes

1. The experiences of those who identify as trans, non-binary, and gender fluid are also distinct and exacerbated by the system’s inability to see gender. They also face a heteronormative system, the dynamics of which have only begun to be explored in research (Nelson et al., 2023; Yu, 2010).

2. The research arose out of the Home for Good project – a three-year collaboration between four organizations in Nova Scotia, Canada, who serve women experiencing housing insecurity. The Home for Good project aimed to:

• empower women who use transitional and second stage housing to identify problems and solutions in the attainment of safe, stable and affordable housing; and

•improve the health and well-being of women and their children in the community through making changes to the systems that affect them.

3. In 2018, there were 220 people in Halifax experiencing homelessness. 32% are women. In Halifax, there are 64 emergency shelter beds for women and children and 140 emergency shelter beds for men (Royal LePage Corporation, 2020). However, we know that women’s homelessness is often hidden and underrepresented in homelessness counts and therefore the number of women experiencing homelessness in Halifax is certainly much higher than these statistics reveal. For more information, also see www.homelesshub.ca

4. It should be said that the agencies were concerned about the limited diversity of the group of women interviewed, and they did seek to identify, in particular, more racialized women to participate.