When you walk down the streets of American cities and towns do you notice folks without a home are male or female more often? The problem of homelessness is particularly heart-wrenching for children. The common wisdom is that the kids are most often with their mom and men make up a majority of the single homeless. After a period of economic melt-down the number of homeless has increased dramatically and this is an issue worth talking about.
The National Coalition for the Homeless is one of the major homeless advocacy groups in the United States, and as it happens they have a fact sheet on who is homeless.
Most studies show that single homeless adults are more likely to be male than female. In 2007, a survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that of the population surveyed 35% of the homeless people who are members of households with children are male while 65% of these people are females. However, 67.5% of the single homeless population is male, and it is this single population that makes up 76% of the homeless populations surveyed (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2007).
Over at No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? they made some interesting points about the gender of homelessness:
First, it is necessary to consider aspects of the male gender role that might make men more likely to be homeless: for instance, men’s greater likelihood of being veterans, or the tendency of men to not seek treatment for their mental illnesses and substance abuse. Looking at it without the gender lens risks missing important aspects of gender.
Second, it is necessary not to erase the existence of women who are homeless. Even though men are more likely to be homeless, homelessness is a lot more gender equal than a lot of people present it. The primary causes of homelessness– poverty, lack of affordable housing, unemployment– affect everyone, regardless of gender. A large percentage of the increase in homeless families is probably caused by the recession: unemployment and lack of affordable housing were the two most commonly cited causes of the increase in homeless families.
Third, it is important to note that there may be reasons why women are more likely to be housed than men that still don’t mean the women are in a particularly good situation. For instance, women are more likely to participate in survival sex in exchange for housing. “Survival sex or homelessness,” however, is one of those dilemmas that really leaves no one in a particularly good situation.
What do you think?
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About Tom Matlack
Vocalyze
Nice article. A good point that is seldom acknowledged.
In my observation, people are more likely to show compassion to a woman. Who stops for a man on the side of the road changing a tire, for example? People are likely more willing to show compassion to prevent her from being homeless than a man, perhaps feeling that she needs more protection. People are more likely to let a man fend for himself.
Men are also less likely to ask for help and try to tough it out. A factor is probably also the fact that women are more likely to have children in tow, and and hence more likely to be given assistance for that reason.
I volunteer in the food pantry of a homeless shelter on Mondays. The thing about veterans is a significant point. About a third of our shelter’s clients and homeless individuals across the country are veterans. It is one of the nation’s largest homeless demographics. The shelter I work at has special homeless veterans programs to address this, and also a dedicated transitional housing facility separate from the main shelter to help veterans transition out of homelessness into a stable living situation.
I think that a lot of people want to hip hip hooray returning soldiers, call them heroes, and then forget about them. I think this is a form of what I call “cartoon patriotism”- sort of a shallow charicature of patriotism. It’s certainly much easier than acknowledging that every time we send troops into battle, we are going to bring home more and more damaged individuals-not just physically damaged, but mentally and emotionally damaged human beings.
“For instance, women are more likely to participate in survival sex in exchange for housing. ”
Where’s the evidence for this? The only evidence I’ve seen is a survey on street youth and it found relative parity in male and female street youth using ‘survival sex’. I think the only difference is the _amount_ a young man or woman can expect in exchange for their sex.
Young men can expect considerably less in terms of shelter, food or money.
To be honest I think this article really skirts the issue of why and how. The first comment get’s it right on the money though:
We just don’t care about men that much and we haven’t built a social safety net for men comparable to the one we’ve built for women. It’s as simple as that.
http://news.change.org/stories/homeless-youth-and-survival-sex
“One study noted that of the youth engaging in survival sex, 48 percent reported exchanging sex for housing or food, 22 percent traded sex for drugs, and 82 percent traded sex for money.”
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248179/
Vancouver, Canada
“Women’s Information Safe Haven (WISH) Drop-In Centre Society connects with an estimated 200 women engaged in survival sex work per night. ”
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http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106430
Report Exposes “Survival Sex Trade” in Post-Earthquake Haiti:
“With international organisations moving out, taking with them the few temporary services that had been available after the earthquake, girls as young as 13 years old are trading sex for the equivalent of half a sandwich, a few U.S. dollars, or access to education,” Lisa Davis, MADRE human rights advocacy director and co-author of the report, told IPS.
After conducting a series of in-depth interviews with women and girls between the ages of 18 to 32 living in the Champ de Mars, Christ Roi and Croix Deprez displacement camps, and in the neighbourhood of Carrefour, the report concluded that none participating in this new- found “economy of survival” described themselves as commercial sex workers. Rather, their actions are a “coping mechanism” in the face of supreme hardships.
Most of the sexual transactions take place between young girls and men who hold positions of power in the camps: administrators of cash- for-work programmes, managers of food supplies and especially men in charge of educational programmes.
Almost none of what NSWATM analysis is correct. Furthermore, I am really tired of self-proclaimed feminists coming into discussions on homeless men trying to explain away the fact that over a quarter of a million men sleep on the streets every night in the US, about 95 percent of the unsheltered homeless. And trust me when I say many men are forced into prostitution just like women, just for a place to sleep or something to eat.
The organization I work with, which will be going up to Capitol Hill again in a week, has lobbied for more resources to get men off the street: resources women have handy from the federal government in spades.
Here is a very in-depth analysis of why men are literally left out in the cold when it comes to finding shelter for the homeless. http://www.thereformedbuddhist.com/2011/10/how-national-organization-of-womens.html
@ Media Hound
Just to be clear? Are you intending to back up my statement with sources or not? Because if you are, then thank you. You provided a wealth of sources for my statement that I hadn’t seen before.
Your first source includes a summary of several studies looking at street youth and survival sex.
Those studies that break survival sex down by sex find the following:
“21 percent of the boys and 5 percent of the girls said that they had engaged in sex in exchange for ‘food, shelter, money, or drugs.”
Feitel, B., N. Margetson, J. Chamas, and C. Lipman. 1992. Psychosocial Background and Behavioral and Emotional Disorders of Homeless and Runaway Youth. Hospitality and Community Psychiatry 43(2): 155‐159.
“13 percent of males exchanged sex for money or drugs and 7 percent of females exchanged
sex for money or drugs.”
Rotheram‐Borus, M., H. Meyer‐Bahlburg, C. Koopman, M. Rosario, T. Exner, R. Henderson, M. Mattieu and R. Gruen. 1992. Lifetime Sexual Behaviors among Runaway Males and Females, The Journal of Sex Research, 29, no.1: 15‐29.
“43 percent reported experience with survival sex (46 percent of young men and 32 percent
of young women).”
Kipke, M., S. O’Conner, R. Palmer, and R. MacKenzie. 1995. Street Youth in Los Angeles: Profile of a Group At High Risk for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine 149: 513‐519.
“41 percent of the youth had been sexually exploited in survival sex or prostitution.
47 percent of females and 37 percent of males were propositioned to sell sex.” (Note: Propositioned to sell sex, does not equal selling sex for survival. I’m just including this for completeness.)
Wagner, L., L. Carlin, A. Cauce and A. Tenner. 2001. A Snapshot of Homeless Youth in Seattle: Their Characteristics, Behaviors and Beliefs About HIV Protective Strategies. Journal of Community Health 26, no. 3: 219‐232.
I was basing my understanding on:
“Depending on the survey, between 18% and 39% of the youth identified as sexually exploited. There is a common perception that sexual exploitation happens mostly or only to females, but street-involved males were just as likely to be exploited as females.
“Around 1 in 3 street-involved youth indicated they were sexually exploited. Among the younger street-involved youth in both surveys, a higher percentage of males than females were sexually exploited (33% males vs. 24% females in 2000, 34% males vs. 27% females in 2006). In contrast, among the older street-involved youth in 2001 in Vancouver, a higher percentage of females identified as exploited (53% vs. 32% males).”
http://www.nursing.ubc.ca/PDFs/ItsNotWhatYouThink.pdf
Your next two sources don’t ask homeless men or youths about ‘survival sex’ so aren’t relevant to determining the relative rates of ‘survival sex’ between men and women.
However, thank you for bringing my attention to those cites that supported my assertion.
Oh my. I should have attributed this to Michelle! Not media hound!
That was the next email in the list – LOL – see comment below! LOL!
You also pointed me to a victimology woozle which I think I’ll be doing a blog-post on at some point.
More and more men in our country are becoming homeless due to the overwhelming amount of child support they are forced to pay to mothers who think the kids are a paycheck. Children are not property and shouldn’t be treated as such. Women who are homeless is because some of them are to lazy to get a job and support the children when they are more likely to get help than a male. Vets in our country are being over looked more and more and should be help in every way possible so that they aren’t homeless. In the end each situation has it’s own circumstances and should be looked at on an individual basis.
Where do you get your “women are lazy” information from? Source please. Or did you just make that up?
I know women who refuse to get a job and live on child support and decide not to get a job and expect people who work hard and pay taxes to take care of them and their children. And I didn’t say all women were lazy, just those who refuse to live on welfare and abuse the system!
There is a factor in homelessness and many other areas which is not mentioned. It has been seen to skew many matters along gender lines and against men – that is the concept of “Vulnerability”.
This hidden factor has crept into many places, and there is this Vulnerability assessment which is used to address housing, support in all forms, access to services and one of the primary defining factors for being classed and treated as Vulnerable is being female.
I found it odd that the mechanisms and effects of assessing Vulnerability and acting upon it are not highlighted.
If it’s a vet who is male he is classed as less vulnerable than a female – even when the basic assessment of need shows that the male is in higher need. This gender weighting causes havoc and is not widely recognised, articulated or discussed.
It’s institutional bias and systemic bias at it’s best – and hidden! Why?
Sorry Media Hound! I incorrectly attributed to you something that MichelleG said upthread!
I was bemused by the email! P^)
But – I am still interested by the use and encroachment of “Vulnerability” as a meme and it’s implications. It has been quite troublesome in Europe and had to be fought back. Is it an ongoing issue in the USA?
Firstly I am having a very hard time believing those stats. They look dodgey and slanted towards trying to minimise male victims. Secondly I love the way the feminists on that site that is supposed to be specifically for men’s issues more immediately blamed the victim for men’s homelessness. Why are men homeless? It’s their own fault they said. And then they said we really need to talk about how much worse women have it than men (of course). Then they talk about how victimised women are for NOT being homeless.
One of the reasons feminists have to be very cagey about homelessness is that as part of their constant Oppression Olympics feminists love to claim women are poorer than men. Of course they fiddle the statistics by excluding the real poorest people – homeless and imprisoned people. By recognising poverty as a reason for homelessness (duh) the obvious question comes up — if feminists insist women are the poor of our society shouldn’t they be the majority of the homeless?
OTOH maybe if we all pretended that women were the majority of the homeless and let the feminists do their victimry routine, maybe there’d actually be more interest in providing services for the homeless. Although of course if that happened they would insist on sex segregationism and male children would be kicked out when they were 14, as with DV shelters. I guess in many respects that’s exactly the way homeless services are already run (including kicking out older male teenagers).
I am sick of the feminist-bashing on this site.
I’m sick of the man-bashing in feminism.
Marie, I hear you! It’s difficult to be a feminist – an ally of women AND men – and be subject to this sort of sentiment so frequently.
We told you why a lot of us don’t trust feminists. We even showed you examples of how mainstream feminist political groups have used their influence to curtail assistance to men (unless you don’t believe NOW is a “real” feminist organization?) You chose to ignore us with what was, essentially, a “no true scotsman” fallacy.
I know women are used to being trusted automatically, but thats a privilege you’re going to have to give up. Want us to believe you’re really an ally? Show. Don’t tell.
It’s no more (and really, a lot less,) than what feminists expect of men.
I am also sick of the feminist-bashing on this site.
I think they are good points Tom. Key points in looking at how men respond to issues. Such as men being less willing to ask for help for seeing it as a weakness or being less likely to acknowledge a physical/mental concern. If we start talking about those things then maybe more men won’t feel ashamed for acknowledging they have a problem and need help.
I also bet that a lot of homeless women might have a place they can stay, not just in exchange for sexual favors, with family or friends then a man might have the option to do.
Victim-blaiming.
Various shelters for homeless women and their children have been started in this country. One woman told me that at the “mainstream” shelter, she was shocked to find that women were expected to be housekeepers but men were not. She was stunned at the sexist double standards.
Whats your point? Sure it’s a double standard, and that sucks (although I wonder if the men were expected to do yardwork/repairs/anything like that) but it’s completely irrelevant to the topic. Unless you’d care to clarify as to how this relates to whether men are truly the majority of homeless people or not?
Your statistics are wrong here. When counting sheltred homeless, 67% are male. But when you count UNSHELTERED homeless (these are the people who really sleep on the streets), the number is 91%. Google “point in time” to see these statistics.
The point in time counts of unsheltered homeless are made in mid january, to artificially deflate the numbers (the weather is at its coldest, and homeless men will do virtually anything to find shelter). Tis is the primary way in which our society addresses true homelessness — count them in January, because it makes the numbers look less bad.
I don’t have stats on this, but my impression is that women have a little more access to homeless shelters, either as shelters for women escaping domestic violence or as homeless people with children.
I found the second quote to be a bit odd. Its second point does not really address the question, just says that, well, it’s probably more equal than you think. There is something to the argument that men and women tend to make different choices in life – seeking help or not, taking risks or not, focusing on financial security or not, etc. But, the second quote seems to place all the blame on homeless men themselves. That’s hardly fair.
I live in a downtown area where the homeless in my city congregate. I see the homeless most days. I am always surprised to see women who I can clearly identify as homeless. The men, that’s just business as usual. There’s something disturbing to me about the way I perceive the homeless differently by their gender. The fact that I see it that way is telling.
I’ve always suspected that women are more careful and take fewer risks in their careers, relationships, everything that could result in homelessness, and that there are fewer homeless women (sleeping on the street at least) because women are terrified of sleeping on the street (more terrified than men) because of the higher risk of both sexual assault, or simple violence by a stronger person.
I’m not saying this is the only reason, I just think it contributes. I know from walking down the street at night that as it gets later, you see fewer and fewer women walking alone, but you still see men walking alone. This is gendered fear. I know, as a non home owner that the fear of homelessness is present in every decision I make, about my career, how careful I am about keeping my current living arrangement harmonious, everything.
” that there are fewer homeless women (sleeping on the street at least) because women are terrified of sleeping on the street (more terrified than men) because of the higher risk of both sexual assault, or simple violence by a stronger person.”
There is no evidence that homeless women are at greater risk for physical assault and any evidence they are at greater risk for sexual assault has to be considered in light of the fact that men report sexual assault often at a fraction the rate of women.
The page refresh on this site is really annoying! Men seldom ask for help because they often know very little of it is available. Why ask for what is known not to be available? When resources are available they are very limited and seldom enough for all – fact is except in extreme cases there are no resources available to men.
Men are conditioned to only ask for help when they have exhausted other resources. Help providers need to also factor in that people seeking help; especially men however need to be able to maintain a sense of dignity and self respect when seeking help.
The expectation right or wrong is that men are providers, so the presumption is that they can provide for themselves – so society does not factor in for the converse of that or that a safety net is needed.
Let’s get past the who has it worse meme and get down to brass tacks. Homelessness is a fact of life for far too many people. That is only going to get worse as the badly eroded safety net gets removed even more.
One startling fact is that more women are veterans now than ever before, that means that the homeless vet problem – so maybe now this will be a wake up call and focus society on getting the homeless especially the vets the help they need and a hand up to get on their feet.
Fact is many veterans are likely to be homeless because when the are active duty- they do not always have people back home advocating for them or seeing to it that their interests are protected. Though most try to maintain themselves on at least two fronts – it really is hard to do two things equally well and sometimes things fall through the cracks. This happens mostly from the inability to be in two places at once.
The reality is without a safety net – there but for the grace of God…. takes on a whole new meaning – homelessness is everyone’s problem.