Women: Representation and Empowerment

Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, offer congratulations to the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Mone, on their excellent and inspiring speeches.

I welcome this debate on women’s representation and empowerment as it allows me to raise the plight of women who are homeless and sleeping rough, and therefore far from being empowered. Homelessness for both men and women is a growing national problem. The Government recently released figures showing that 3,569 people slept rough on any one night across England in 2015—an increase of 30% from 2,744 in 2014, and a wholly unacceptable increase of 102% between 2010 and 2015.

Homeless women are at increased risk of attack and exploitation. St Mungo’s, the homeless charity, which I thank for briefing me, says that 28% of its clients are women, of whom 78% have a mental health need, 52% have a substance-use problem of drugs or alcohol, four out of 10 have an offending history, and 24% have been in prison. Nearly half have slept rough and half have experienced domestic violence, 30% of whom say this fact contributed to their homelessness; and one in five experienced childhood violence or abuse.

The Combined Homelessness and Information Network recorded 1,094 women sleeping rough in London in 2014-15. Although information about the gender of people sleeping rough is not publicly available outside London, 30% of people using homeless accommodation services in England are women, according to Homeless Link. These figures are likely to be an underestimate as women say that they take care to hide themselves when sleeping rough, so are difficult to find for official counts. Many more women will be “hidden homeless”, living outside mainstream homelessness accommodation. Instead, they may be “sofa surfing”, staying with family or friends, or trapped in abusive relationships because they have nowhere else to go. Others, according to St Mungo’s, will be squatting or living in crack houses, or engaged in prostitution. Better data collection is needed to help plan appropriate gender-sensitive accommodation and services. National and local government should in future collect and report data on gender as part of annual street counts. Of particular concern is the number of women rough sleepers with mental health problems. In London, the figure is thought to be 60%.

Women are more likely to sleep rough as a result of traumatic experiences, including violence and abuse, and those with mental health problems spend longer sleeping rough, which in turn makes it harder to access mental health services. They struggle to escape the street because mental health problems make it harder for them to engage with homelessness services. Professional outreach workers also suggest that depression and post-traumatic stress disorder can contribute to a lack of motivation and sense of hopelessness, which prevent women tackling their situation, unable to persist with appointments and paperwork. Stigma plays a part, together with a lack of services that will work with people facing multiple problems, including drug and alcohol use; difficulties getting an assessment or referral to secondary care without being registered with a GP; and trouble making and keeping appointments while sleeping on the street.

In London, the number of people recorded as sleeping rough with an identified mental health support need has more than tripled over the last five years. Patients discharged from mental health hospitals should not be left to fend for themselves on the streets with nowhere to sleep. Too often, vulnerable women are released from prison with no accommodation to go to. I acknowledge that this Government have provided £6.5 billion to help vulnerable people through housing-related support and given over £500 million since 2010 to local authorities and the voluntary sector to prevent and tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. However, more needs to be done.

St Mungo’s is calling on the Government to publish a new, ambitious national rough-sleeping strategy. This should include an investment in specialist homelessness mental health services. The new strategy should deliver mental health assessments and professional support to people on the street, specialist supported housing to help with their recovery, and the right support on discharge so people do not end up sleeping rough after leaving mental health hospitals. Supported housing must include women-only hostels and refuges, which can provide the holistic, gender-sensitive support that allows women to move out of homelessness. Significant cuts to local authority spending on housing-related support have resulted in a reduction in such services.

St Mungo’s believes that the future of supported housing for vulnerable groups is increasingly uncertain and, although it welcomes the decision to suspend the rent reduction for supported housing for one year while the review into this specialist type of housing is completed, it remains concerned. The government proposal to cap housing benefit at the local housing allowance rate, now also suspended by a year, is still due to apply to tenancies from 2017, and this will leave St Mungo’s facing an enormous shortfall in income for specialist housing, leading to possible closure of this support. It is essential that accommodation and support are available for homeless women with substance-use and mental health issues and those involved in prostitution, who are less able to access traditional refuge services.

Early intervention is vital, as so many problems that lead to women’s homelessness have been found to begin in childhood. The troubled families programme must identify girls and women who are at risk and need support to avoid homelessness. A St Mungo’s report, Rebuilding Shattered Lives, found that women’s homelessness often occurred after prolonged experience of trauma, including physical, sexual and emotional abuse, frequently within the home. This led to a cycle of mental ill health and substance use, and myriad other interrelated challenges to overcome, including their children being taken into care. To empower these vulnerable women, the Government must take further action in partnership with local government and the voluntary sector to end rough sleeping.