Accelerating Action for Women Experiencing Homelessness
International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate and reflect on the progress made in closing gendered gaps across personal and professional spheres. From looking back to securing the vote to more recent progress in anything from pay gaps towards equality in the workplace. But despite these gains, significant gaps remain. None more so, perhaps, than in the context of women’s experience of homelessness.
To mark International Women’s Day 2025, Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity brought together a panel of experts though lived and learned experience spanning the VCFSE and public sector. Central to the discussion was a focus on challenging stereotypical assumptions about the experience of homelessness.
The biases and stereotypes around the experience of homelessness tend to stigmatise, masking underlying structural drivers with dismissive assumptions about the circumstances leading to a night on the streets or the loss of a home. Homelessness is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ experience. While all experiences of homelessness are therefore unique, those experiences are gendered: women experience homelessness in different ways to men.
Challenging stereotypes and biases within the system, as well as ensuring all experiences are visible and accounted, is vital to delivering effective services which are co-produced, value relationships, and account for intersectional identities (e.g. also to include race, sexuality, disability etc).
Beyond the dynamics of service provision, challenging stereotypes more broadly can help to dismantle misperceptions about the experience of homelessness. Importantly, it can also break down stigma which can prevent the public or businesses engage with VCFSE organisations working in this sphere. The panel discussion shone a light on these issues, inviting businesses and VCFSE organisations from the region to come, learn, challenge their biases and act.
Meet the Panel
Chaired by Fran Darlington-Pollock (CEO) - Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity
Becky Barlow (CEO) – Beauty for Ashes Refuge
Brooke Leigh Jones (Housing Project Officer) – Rochdale Borough Council
Claudine Balfe, (Poet and Systems Change Advocate) – representing GMHAN (Greater Manchester Homeless Action Network) Lived Experience Group.
Faye Millard (Outreach & Engagement Worker) – MASH
Kirsty Rhodes (CEO) – WHAG
Niamh Foley (Senior Policy and Project Officer – Homelessness) and Beth Kilheeney (Lead Analyst for Homelessness) – Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Panel of speakers, from left to right: Claudine Balfe, Niamh Foley, Brooke Jones, Kirsty Rhodes, Fran Darlington-Pollock, Faye Millard, Beth Kilheeney, Becky Barlow
Opening with a poem recited by Claudine Balfe, Claudine used her poetry to bring the audience into her lived experiences and the warmth and hope she found through engagement with homelessness support services in Greater Manchester. Her words demonstrated the importance of being visible and being heard, a theme that followed through into Niamh Foley and Beth Kilheeney’s (Greater Manchester Combined Authority) overview of the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census.
Reporting on data from the 2023 Census, Beth and Niamh highlighted the power of this census as a tool to unmask the experiences of women otherwise hidden in traditional snapshot counts. For example, in 2023, of the 190 women identified as experiencing rough sleeping in the 3 months prior to census week (September 2023), 75 had slept rough the night before completing the survey. In contrast, national reporting of rough sleeping ‘on a typical night’ identified only 5 women in in Autumn 2023.
The definition of rough sleeping is far broader in the rough sleeping census, recognising the different places women may spend the night or bed down. While men may literally bed down in a visible space outdoors, women may walk around all night, sit on transport or in 24-hour places such as McDonalds.
Brooke Leigh Jones from Rochdale Borough Authority then reflected on the importance of the partnerships and collaborations within and between local authority and VCFSE organisations to best support women experiencing homelessness, as well as the gaps in provision exacerbated both by inadequate data and inappropriate application of definitions.
WHAG’s CEO, Kirsty Rhodes, talked of the nature of the services they offer, both as a provider of Greater Manchester’s pioneering A Bed Every Night initiative and more generally in relation to homelessness. Central to their approach is a focus on the women they support: listen was Kirsty’s overarching message. Services must respond to the reality of the crises women face, and their current needs – they are best placed to know that, and when empowered, can best advocate for that.
Claudie Balfe (Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network) picked up the conversation here, drawing on her personal experiences of homelessness, services, and what works for next steps. She celebrated her words as a tool for recovery and now, for advocacy, best used reciprocally with services and partners who both want to support but also learn to do better.
It was notable that, in participating on the panel, Claudine was pleased to learn of more connectivity between services than previously thought (though this does signal the potential for shared messaging and communications between services). Most significant in all of Claudine’s reflections was her emphasis on the power and importance of spaces for creativity to support people out of homelessness and help them rebuild.
Faye Millard then shared her experiences working at MASH (Manchester Action on Street Health). MASH works with women who sex work - a group who are often also at risk of or experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping. Faye was an evocative and strong advocate for the women she works with, championing the organisations inclusive approach while rallying us all to do more for women every day – and not just on International Women’s Day. Most poignant was her reminder that there’s no breaking the glass ceiling if you can’t get off the floor. We can’t spend all our time celebrating the progress and achievements towards the top if we forget about those trapped elsewhere.
Becky Barlow was the last panellist, sharing a similarly impassioned message as CEO at Beauty for Ashes. Becky highlighted the gaps in provision for (unregularised) migrant women fleeing domestic violence, telling of the courage needed for all survivors to take a step out of that situation, and the barriers introduced when women without recourse to public funds find themselves consistently turned away from refuges.
The service Beauty for Ashes provides is a vital one, but one that also depends on their ability to educate other professionals in the system as to what support people are entitled to. Her words, and the stories running through the reflections of all on the panel, were a stark reminder of the harsh reality women experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping face, and the additional barriers their gender brings.
Poignant, emotional, powerful and motivating, the discussion left panellists and audience members alike with a lot to consider. On a day asking us all to consider how to accelerate action and close gendered inequalities, it shone a light on the experiences of those at the sharpest end of the housing and homelessness crisis.
We can end homelessness, but we can only do so with full attention to all experiences of homelessness and rough sleeping.
Thank you to our panellists for their contributions, and to Hinterland Alcohol-free Bar and Café for hosting.