Women, Homelessness and Service Provision 51 to respond to experiences of gender-based violence in the context of service provision appeared to divide opinion among the practitioners. While some called for more female-only services and staff members who are equipped to provide women – particularly those with experiences of sexual abuse and/or violence – with a “safe space” away from men to assess and come to terms with their situations, others highlighted the importance of also providing women (and their children) with positive male role models and relationships that can potentially help to prepare them for ‘real world’ situations. For example, in the first quote, one participant felt that women prefer to engage with female staff members because of their past experiences of violence perpetuated by men while, in the second quote, another practitioner emphasised the importance of placing a “time limit” on women staying in female-only spaces since it may exacerbate their “fear” of men and hamper their ability to successfully exit homelessness. “We need dedicated services for women with women staff, with women-only safe spaces … I mean, if you take a look at the homeless women, they prefer to talk with women workers; they are not very open to male workers because of what’s already happened on the streets or whatever trauma happened throughout their life. It’s obviously a male that has done the damage.” “If you have male staff, you know, working within that environment, you give her referring to female service users that support to show that not every man is potentially bad… And there has to be a time limit, otherwise we ourselves as staff have provided a blockage because it nearly builds up that fear to say, ‘I’ll just stay here.” The negative consequences of prolonged stays in emergency or short-term accommodation have been documented elsewhere (Mayock and Sheridan, 2012a; Mayock et al., 2015). The following account from one service provider is perhaps significant in light of the previous discussion of ‘institutionalised cycling’. “The more security the women have in residential, they don’t want to leave. They have all the security that they actually require, they don’t have to think for themselves and they don’t want to think for themselves.” A number of service providers highlighted the implications of women becoming “too comfortable” in residential service settings which, in turn, can increase the risk of women becoming over-reliant and dependent upon service providers and staff to provide structure and routine in their lives as well as practical and emotional support: “The women in residential services have become very reliant on staff and having things done for them and handing over a lot of that responsibility and there’s probably, they expect a bit more handholding”. In the excerpt below, one practitioner explained that, in her experience, some service users can become ‘institutionalised’ in service environments and that this can result in many female service users becoming reluctant or afraid to ‘move on’ from supported accommodation. “Women are becoming more and more comfortable in services; they stall … and I feel they were used to institutionalisation, that’s what we services are doing. I think we now have to push a little harder to help people because we know they have some skills and they are not utilising those skills within residential services. They skills are actually being taken away from the women, you know? They have been cocooned and then we are asking them to open that cocoon and go out and that is the most frightening thing we can actually ask them ... that ‘move on’ word actually causes panic”.
Women, Homelessness and Service Provision
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