6 Simon Communities in Ireland Aldridge, 2001; Mayock and Sheridan, 2012a; Mayock et al., 2012). However, relatively little is known about the intersection of gender and homelessness, particularly in relation to women’s service utilisation practices and the manner in which they respond to the services designed to meet their needs. Homeless Women and Service Provision Services targeting homeless individuals have historically been modelled on provision for the quintessential homeless male and have thus tended to display little gender sensitivity (Edgar and Doherty, 2001). As a result, services for women are typically under-resourced across Europe and the specific needs of women experiencing housing instability have been sidelined, placing them in a vulnerable position within the context of service provision. Edgar and Doherty’s (2001) comparative analysis of female homelessness in Europe included an examination of the nature of service provision for homeless women in selected countries. This volume highlighted a lack of co-ordination across homeless services targeting women and a tendency for services to be geared towards homeless men. Female-oriented services were found to prioritise the needs of mothers and women fleeing domestic violence, a focus which has served to reinforce a distinction between homeless services and specialised services such as refuges, forcing ‘single’ women to access generalist services that are primarily male-dominated. Other gaps in service provision identified included a lack of services targeting older women, services targeting women engaged in sex work, and services targeting female ethnic minority and immigrant groups. In the Irish context, relatively little is known about the structure and organisation of services targeting homeless women. However, a recent study set out to ‘map’ the range and type of services available to women experiencing housing instability based on a survey distributed to all services known to provide accommodation to homeless women in the Dublin region (Mayock et al., 2013). The survey, which was administered online, was designed to collect comprehensive data on the types of accommodation offered by homeless and domestic services to women. A majority of the survey questions were ‘closed’, requiring respondents to provide factual information on the type and nature of the service(s) they provide. For example, the survey included numerous questions aimed at collecting information on the structure and organisation of individual services (e.g. catchment areas, primary funding sources); operational information (e.g. minimum and maximum number of beds available, capacity levels, client turnover rates, rules and regulations in relation to curfews and alcohol consumption); target populations (e.g. age, gender, policies pertaining to clients with children, referral routes, client characteristics, presenting problems); support capacity (e.g. staffing details, service delivery and service procedures); and details of any future plans (e.g. expansion, re-configuration) or concerns. To supplement these quantitative data, several qualitative open-ended questions focused on service providers’ views on the adequacy of current service provision as well as their perspectives on how services might be organised to better meet the needs of homeless women. Thirty-eight services completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 98%. The survey findings revealed that there were far fewer women-only than mixed-gender services. Sixty-six per cent (n = 25) of the services surveyed accommodated both men and women. The remaining 34% (n = 13) provided either women-only accommodation (n = 3) or accommodation for women and their children (n = 10) and a majority of these specifically targeted women and children experiencing domestic violence (n = 8). Over three-quarters of services reported that their service ‘almost always’ (79%, n = 30) or ‘often’ (13%, n = 5) operates at full capacity and, in the mixed-gender services, it was estimated that women constitute approximately 37% of residents at any given time. The qualitative findings uncovered a perceived lack of women-only accommodation options, which was considered to be a particularly pressing matter for mothers with children in their care. Furthermore, a lack of awareness about the effects of domestic
Women, Homelessness and Service Provision
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