Women officially make up close to 37% of Sarnia-Lambton’s homeless population, according to the keynote speaker at the Annual General Meeting for the local Women’s Interval Home.
But that 37% figure is likely closer to 50% because women tend to be part of the “hidden homeless,” said Erin Dej, an associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University whose research focuses on the social exclusion of unhoused people.
“Women’s homelessness is often hidden behind closed doors.” They’ll often stay in motel programs or on a friend’s couch and do not get included in the traditional homeless count, Dej said.
They stay hidden for various reasons including the possibility of losing their children, and fearing for their safety in shelters, she said citing the Canadian Housing Survey.
“We have strong evidence that women do in fact make up approximately half of the homeless population, not one-third.”
The pandemic created a dramatic shift in gender ratios living on the street or in a precarious situation, according to Dej. More than 20,000 Canadian women left the workforce in 2020 and accounted for nearly two-thirds of job losses during the pandemic, she said.
“The pandemic highlighted that women are more often employed in marginal, minimum wage and part-time jobs.”
Where most people experiencing homelessness were once older white men, now women, young people, older adults, newcomers and families have become a much larger proportion of the homeless population.
Study after study reveals that intimate partner violence is one of the primary causes of women’s homelessness, Dej said. “We also know it’s true because women have been telling us this for years.”
The answer to getting women off the street is building more affordable housing, Dej added.
Even though almost half the people experiencing homelessness are women, men’s needs continue to dominate homelessness strategies and most shelter beds are designated for men, she said.
Across Canada, only 9% of shelter beds are for women. Another 19% are for families.
“Women’s homelessness services are chronically underfunded and unable to meet the demand for service,” said Dej. Most of her data was drawn from the Pan-Canadian Women’s Housing and Homelessness Survey and Statistics Canada.
Canadian stats show that 21% of women who leave women’s shelters such as Sarnia’s Women’s Interval Home, return to the home where they experienced abuse.
“Only 14% said they had their own home to go to that didn’t include their abuser.”
Most don’t know where they are going to go. Of those who resort to living on the street, 44% report experiencing violence daily, according to Dej.
The political will to dedicate more government funding to housing is sorely needed, she said.
Aside from the fact that housing is a human right, it’s not economically smart to keep pouring money into services that support homelessness rather than build new housing, Dej said.
“Emergency shelter costs three times as much as providing social housing.”
Women’s Interval Home (WIH) Executive Director Jennifer Vansteenkiste said she isn’t at all surprised with growing evidence that women make up about half the homeless population.
She estimates that two-thirds of the women leaving the local women’s shelter cannot move into safe and appropriate housing primarily because of Sarnia’s affordable housing shortage.
The reality is that some are living in the Rainbow Park encampment, Vansteenkiste said.
Once council determines there is land available to donate, the Women’s Interval Home intends to apply for capital funding through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
A community fundraising campaign is also planned, Vansteenkiste said.
The WIH has 10 shelter rooms and can accommodate 17 women and children at a time. Typically, they stay 42 days but that length-of-stay is increasingly being extended because survivors of abuse have nowhere else to go.
“I think we need to be blunt with our politicians,” said WIH chair Dorian Noble. “There is such a big need.”
The Women’s Interval Home held its AGM Sept. 17 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Point Edward. About 70 people attended.