Adele Ward
Novelist and poet

The media tends to focus on the problem of homelessness for men, but it is an issue that also affects women.

And for women the risks associated with living on the street are higher, risks both to their physical and their mental wellbeing.

We might like to think that homelessness is somebody else’s problem and not something that could happen to us, but the reasons women become homeless show that this is a situation that could happen to anybody.

One woman I know was turned out by her landlord because she had a child and was on benefit. Another couldn’t afford her mortgage when her marriage ended and her house was repossessed.

Refugees arriving in this country can find themselves homeless and without the right to claim financial assistance or to any accommodation if their request to stay is turned down.

Women with mental health conditions, often unable to get residential care from hospitals and dependent on help from their families, are another vulnerable group.

Walk in to fast food cafes or libraries in cities in the run up to Christmas and you’ll find them sitting in the warm.

Many of the most vulnerable are teenagers who have left home for a variety of reasons and have broken off contact with their parents.

It is vital that all of these women are helped as quickly as possible.

Night shelters are among the most important places to help identify homeless women most at risk – the ones sleeping in the street.

Once women find their way to these shelters the organisers work with agencies to get them into more secure accommodation. They also try to arrange employment.

I spoke to Maggie Hindley, a United Reform church minister who has had a long involvement with the organisation of cold weather shelters and refugee work in London.

She told me that when she worked in two night shelters in the Camden and Kings Cross areas, out of every 14 homeless people the shelters looked after at night between two to four were women.

When I first helped out at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Kilburn, north London, in the 1990s, I was told that the long-term homeless women housed in the hostel were more likely to have mental health problems than the men, and were more difficult to look after.

I do not think that is still the case, as women are now also becoming homeless because of spiralling problems with debt and housing.

Women often surprise me with their openness in discussing financial difficulties.

While researching this article the woman behind the till in my supermarket told me out of the blue that she was working long hours into the night because her electricity had been cut off.

She could no longer afford her fuel bill and groceries and she has children. She is one of many.

When the basic essentials cost too much for women to afford, and especially if they have children to feed, the credit card can be overstretched until the point comes when the repayments can’t be made.

Whether working or on benefits, many women do not have enough money coming in to feed their families and to keep them warm.

In many cases women become homeless to escape violence and abuse, and poor hostel accommodation shared with unsafe residents is an option they do not want to take.

Instead they choose to rely on friends, neighbours and family to let them sleep on sofas – if they have friends and family to approach.

The shortage of social housing has been a problem for decades – it was lost through the right-to-buy scheme and we haven’t yet built enough new homes to compensate.

And until enough social housing is built other solutions are needed.

Maggie Hindley has one answer to the accommodation shortage, which goes a step further for anybody wanting to help the homeless.

She is involved in a scheme called London Hosting, which involves offering up her own home to others.

She recently helped an African woman who was brought to the UK by her mother, who then abandoned her at the age of 14 so she went into foster care.

After some time in foster care the authorities realised she had arrived without authorisation and she was sent to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.

Her country of origin refused to take her back, so she became homeless for the first time and moved in with her boyfriend and his racist, Islamophobic mother, according to Ms Hindley. This resulted in her becoming homeless again.

The eight weeks she spent with Maggie Hindley were enough to give her a calm space while her boyfriend found a lawyer to fight and win her human rights case. He has now left his mother and the couple are living together.

If you would like to help the homeless you should be able to find a project near you.

You don’t have to be religious, even though churches often provide buildings for these shelters, and they also tend to notice the homeless sleeping on their steps. People of all beliefs can take part.

With Christmas coming this could be a good time for you to find a way to join in.

Further information: To find voluntary work or assist at a cold weather shelter, a night shelter, a soup run or a kitchen dishing up meals, ask your local borough or take a look at Housing Justice.

If you are having trouble affording essential groceries, the Trussel Trust can help, and if your credit card has become too much to manage don’t wait too long before phoning them and asking for your repayments to be stopped.

And under the Children’s Act all children have the right to financial assistance which is paid to their parents by local councils, even if the family has no right to benefits.

About the author: Adele Ward is a London-based novelist and poet whose latest novel Everything is Free is about a homeless teenager called Mel who has moved into a shopping centre during a cold spell at Christmas.

She helps out at two London Cold Weather Shelters in the Camden and Kings Cross areas, and co-organises the Lumen/Camden Poetry Competition, in aid of the homeless, which is judged by Britain’s Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.