And There’s Nowhere to Get Away From It
It’s not at all uncommon for women to feel like they can never fully relax while they’re out in public places. From catcalling and street harassment to the constant threat of potentially deadly violence, many women and people of other marginalized genders are always at least a little bit on edge from the time they leave their doors in the morning until they lock it behind them as they return. But what happens when you have no safe and secure place to return to?
Unhoused women are operating at this level of hypervigilance 24/7 because the threat to them is constant. Even if nothing bad ever actually happens, the constant stress of trying to avoid the worst outcomes takes a heavy toll.
Safe Spaces Are Few and Far Between
It’s easy to see how unsheltered women have greater exposure to the “casual” level of harassment that occurs every day on streets everywhere. If you remember the video of the woman walking through NYC and being catcalled over 100 times, imagine never being able to go home for a break.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
While unsheltered street homelessness may seem the most vulnerable, all the other options have their dangers as well. Staying in a public shelter may shield you from random passersby, but it still leaves you vulnerable to other guests and shelter staff.
Sleeping on a friend’s couch puts you in someone else’s home who may act differently behind closed doors. Even in private accommodations, women can’t always rest easy when they don’t know who’s holding the other set of keys to their bedroom door. Many choose to sleep in their cars if they have the option because at least they can make a quick getaway if something happens.
Unhoused Women Are Losing Sleep Over This
Rest is a difficult thing for unhoused women in particular. It’s challenging to find a spot where you can feel secure enough to sleep, leading many women to develop adaptive strategies such as staying up all night and sleeping during the day, traveling far off the beaten paths to camp out in hidden locations, or engaging in sex or relationships they otherwise wouldn’t just to have a relatively safe place to stay for the night.
This is not ideal for health. Getting enough uninterrupted, restful sleep is critical to maintaining healthy brain and body function. The adverse effects of poor sleep can be far-reaching in ways we don’t yet fully understand.
What we do know is that sleep deprivation is linked to all sorts of chronic health problems, decreased immune function, a greater chance of injury, decreased mental health, and poor decision-making. It can even shorten your lifespan.
Homeless Women Are Targeted
Unhoused women face all of the same types of harassment and violence that housed women face, but they are also targeted for additional mistreatment because they are homeless. Homeless women are preyed upon because of their lack of status in society and the vulnerability of their position. It’s not uncommon for a “good Samaritan” to offer help that comes with a price or is just a blatant lie designed to lure them elsewhere.
I’ve written before about how the guise of “helping homeless people” can be used as cover by violent people looking for easy victims. That story contains multiple stories of sexual violence perpetrated by founders of homeless outreach ministries against women and girls under the organization’s care.
Getting a job at a homeless outreach program with little oversight or even starting your own charitable organization puts abusers in a position of having a steady stream of vulnerable women who depend on them for access to things as essential as food and shelter and who can be easily discredited if they do decide to bravely speak out against such a “pillar of the community.”
Of course, not every organization is like this, but any organization could be. And it’s not always easy to discern the good ones from the bad ones until it’s too late—especially when you’re stressed out, sleep-deprived, and in desperate need of the resources offered!
Other institutions, like the healthcare system and the police force, are no better. Homeless women and, in particular, Black homeless women are too often mistreated in the care of these systems that insist they exist to protect and help everyone. The name of the game for many unhoused women is simply to avoid contact with these systems for as long as possible.
Homeless women know that much of the world doesn’t care about them at best and, at worst, seeks to actively harm them. They have to be constantly on the lookout for this, and it can cause them to pass up genuine offers of help because the consequences of misjudging a situation can be so severe.
This is Taking Years Off of Lives
Unhoused women are subjected to unspeakable violence at an unacceptable rate. This violence costs many their lives and many more their peace. Even in a best-case scenario where an act of violence never occurs to a specific woman, the damage is still done to her by the environment of fear and danger that she is immersed in all the time.
Homeless women have to be aware of and react to potentially dangerous situations before they even occur. They always have to anticipate the worst to stay relatively safe. This has a cost that we don’t often try to quantify. The cost includes peace of mind, sleep, the ability to accept needed assistance, and all the health impacts of constantly being stressed out. These things significantly reduce life expectancy on their own- we can only imagine what kind of effect they’re having together.
