Launch of New Women's Street Outreach Project

Why do women need a specialist service?

Evidence shows us that women experience homelessness differently than men. They have often experienced significant traumas such as domestic abuse and child removal. Because of the fear of violence on the street, they are more likely to sleep rough in places where they can’t be seen, walk around or sit in A+E waiting rooms all night, stay with unsafe people, or sell or exchange sex to support themselves.

Some also avoid visiting traditional rough sleeping services such as day centres and shelters, which can be intimidating if they are dominated by groups of men. Because they are not often spotted in services, or data collection methods such as the government’s annual rough sleeper street counts (there were no women recorded in Enfield in last year’s snapshot count), it can seem like they don’t exist – they are ‘hidden homeless’. But new projects like the Women’s Census show us that there are up to 10 times as many women sleeping rough than the government counts.

What we're seeing

APAP knows that there are women experiencing homelessness and multiple other injustices who need more support. The percentage of women who come into our day centre is on the rise – up from 27.3% to 36.4% of total new clients in the past 6 months. Reports from our local partner agencies tell us that many women are currently involved in night-time street-based sex work across Haringey and Enfield who may not be accessing the day-time services that they need, such as mental health, substance use, immigration and housing. 

Fore Street in Enfield

Our new women's street outreach project

We are therefore setting up a new, specialist women’s outreach service tailored specifically for this group of women. We will be going out twice a week on night-time street outreach shifts, sharing essential care packages with hot drinks, food, sexual health and hygiene products. By building up safe and trusting relationships, we hope to then also see these women in a new women-only drop-in space, where we will be able to do more in-depth case work to resolve whatever issues they wish to address. We will also be hosting targeted multi-agency case meetings to ensure collaboration across multiple services and make sure no woman falls through the cracks.   

This project will run on the principles of being trauma-informed, person centred and rights-based, which means understanding and accommodating the difficult things a person may have been through in the past, working at their pace and to their priorities, and seeing them as agents of their own lives with full human rights. Women working in the street-based sex industry, including those who have been trafficked and exploited, experience a lot of judgement, oppression and coercion. Our workers will support women to be safe, healthy, housed, and have the space to make their own decisions about what is right for them.  

We are inspired by the voices of women with lived experience of these issues, who will be continually guiding how we operate, as well as by academic research and reporting, and insights from similar existing projects around the UK about what works in practice.  

But before we can get fully up and running, we need two new staff to join us as project workers. If this role interests you, please take a look here.  

If you are a professional who would like to find out more about the service or refer someone to us, please email morgan@allpeopleallplaces.org.

Morgan Harries, Project Manager & Outreach Worker at APAP

Banner photo credit: Centre for Homelessness Impact, women affected by experiences of homelessness.