WOMEN and HOMELESSNESS on Woman's Hour now!

[YesTonightJosephine]

I am in tears listening to this ...

No words!

[ I was not too sure where to post this ... ]

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Co-parenting, Homelessness and women, Dr Jessica Taylor

I think @Treaclescourer is peddling the right wingers agenda for them. Such ignorance on this thread. It's a sorry state of affairs.

100 per cent agree

In a free society people must be allowed to fail. The woman in this case chooses not to work. She expects to have a two bedroom home provided. The problem is with the individual concerned, not the system. Many of us could quite happily give up jobs we loathe if we could get a decent home provided to us at minimal cost. We don't, because we are responsible people.

That's because men are more likely than women to not be the main carer/Resident Parent. The risk factor isn't sex or gender. It's being childless.

However homeless women are arguably more vulnerable than men precisely because the majority of homeless people are men. Sexual assaults (on the streets and in homeless accomodation) aren't an uncommon occurrence for homeless women.

Although it's not ok for anyone, male or female, to be homeless. Housing should be a priority for whoever's in government. I was on another thread yesterday about the rise in people on sickness benefits. The link to housing (or lack of it) is undeniable.

Go on then, what about choosing to give up work and stay lounging around with her unemployed adult son was outside of the control of this woman?

Genuinely faultless homelessness is near enough impossible.

Everyone has choices and agency, those that don’t are often helped. For example those fleeing DV, or persecution etc.

That post contains a lot of myths/misinformation.

Men are less likely to seek MH help so less likely to be diagnosed or receive MH intervention. One of the factors contributing to the leading cause of death in men under 50 being suicide. The male suicide rate is 3 times that of women.

It is factually innacurate to say men are less likely to experience serious mental illness. They're just less likely to seek help and when they do, their presentation is often more likely to result in them being dismissed as aggressive/antisocial rather than being in need of support.

But this really shouldn't devolve into a who has it worse? conversation.

And having worked in MH services for decades, my experience is that men are less likely to be able to access MH and housing support which isn't necessarily a primarily sex-based issue, but because women are more likely to be primary care-givers so are seen as more of a priority than men.

Not thinking about this particular case, but I believe that homelessness women will eventually catch up with men.
Especially among single parents who are unable to build a career or are stuck in low wage jobs due to bringing up DC.
Once DC and top up benefits are gone, they are dropped by the system.... they often luck skills or experience for better paid jobs and are of an undesirable age for many employers.

Women, especially single parents should be better protected.

But the way things are going, we'll see more single people homeless, without any fault on their part.

Where is the misinformation or myths these are factual statistics they are not made up I'm quite happy to give you all the statistics if you so wish?

I think it's possible that this women just didn't met the criteria for housing and played chicken with the council.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the wording in the letter though.

Hobson's Choice more like. It's actually very easy to become 'faultless homeless'. Redundancy, illness, or not being a high earner, and that's all it takes.

Haven't you seen the many threads on MN where someone is struggling to find a place to rent? Landlords not accepting children or single people or people on benefits (including working people on benefits because the landlord wants higher earner tenants).

With street homelessness, the biggest risk factor is no dependant children. That's not always a choice, but also do you really think people should use their 'choices and agency' to have children purely to get housing??!

As for the 'help' the 'faultless' get. The article below describes what housing for vulnerable people, including those who've fled DV, is sometimes like. Attempted murders, sexual assaults, drug dealing, thefts, robberies and violence. That's the 'helpful housing' they were given.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-slum-estate-thats-like-31775807

Because they are less likely to have kids with them. You are less likely to be entitled to anything if you dont have children. Hence why this lady was told what she was told

They usually house the primary carer of the children and the children. Women are usually the primary carer because men are not willing to be.

I was gonna say this.

So as expected and mentioned myself previously, those in genuine need will be helped. The help not being ‘ideal’ isnt a gotcha.

Factually not one person who is long term sleeping rough will have had no opinions. They will have their reasons, but realistically speaking there are options but not attractive ones.

One of the gentlemen who I personally worked with to try and get off the streets had a terrible story, absolutely heartbreaking, you can understand why he had a mental breakdown and ended up on the streets, but, he did have options, he decided to not accept the help on offer, he decided not to follow up on certain avenues of support.

There is only so much you can help people before it becomes their issue to tackle.

You can’t force people to seek or accept help, as I said I’ve worked in this area for 12+ years and I’ve yet to meet one single person, male or female who is sleeping on the streets that has absolutely no options to change that.

Yep, no one said otherwise?

Still doesn’t change the fact that without mitigating factors both men and women are expected to be Independant enough to house themselves

So what your saying is all men and women just need to have a child or a bunch.
And we get a home.
So we just use kids to get what we want.

@earther No thats not what i said at all. But people are less likely to get help if they dont have kids or dont have kids with them That is fact.

I'm very aware of the statistics thanks.

And as I pointed out, as men are less likely to seek help for their MH, the statistics on diagnosis based on help-seeking don't tell us a great deal.

Have a look at the mental health UK website about men's

Apart from the fact that suicide is the leading cause of death in men under 50. And the male suicide rates are several times that of women in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/near-to-real-time-suspected-suicide-surveillance-nrtsss-for-england/statistical-report-near-to-real-time-suspected-suicide-surveillance-nrtsss-for-england-for-the-15-months-to-august-2023

The latest statistics demonstrate that in suicides in the 15 months before Jan this year, almost 75% were men. Do you think they were all men not suffering from some kind of mental illness?

Or is it very likely that they were and either didn't seek help or help wasn't forthcoming?

Like I said, this really shouldn't be a men vs women debate but when you post about women being more likely to experience mental ill health which is based on diagnostic rates of people seeking help when every single research study about men's mental health says men are much less likely to seek help, I'm not sure what point you think you're making.

I'm not going to link everything you should look at but Mind have issued reports, the Government has targeted men's mental health and suicide. Numerous NHS trusts have targeted it as a public health issue. MH UK have pages dedicated to it.

It's not the patriarchy, it's the fact it is well known and researched that men seek help at lesser rates so are less likely to be diagnosed or offered an intervention by MH services and that is reflected in the astonishing rates of male suicide in the UK.

Danimontyrae I didn't realise the background of the woman. Just caught the end of a news bulletin of people sleeping rough. Yes she should have stayed in France, presumably she was desperate though,and came here for help

It’s a very badly phrased letter, but I suspect that rather than being the official voice of Thurrock Council, this is a last-straw letter written by some overworked housing needs officer who spends all day dealing with often difficult people who all think they should be jumped to the front of the queue, and who has in all likelihood spent months telling Ms Dodson that she isn’t going to be given a council house even if she threatens to wait things out until it reaches bailiffs and make no other provisions, and signposting her towards other housing options.

The point I'm making you said I was misinforiming people and I'm also well aware of statistics and facts suicide Is not a mental health condition.its a response to one,so I'm not really sure why you are using that comparison many people suffer chronic mental health conditions without commiting suicide and its always devastating when that happens be it men or women

Not what you said but thats how it comes across.
Tbh your not wrong either thats how it feels to a lot of people.
Have kids get what what want childfree you get fuck all.

Street homelessness is on the rise. And lots of hidden homeless sofa surfing.
For women the main cause of homelessness is fleeing domestic violence.
Rents are very high and nearly all landlords require deposits that for some are unreachable.
The reason more people do not end up homeless is because they get help from friends and family. If you have no one to help you are very vulnerable.

It is far more complicated than that. Women are underrepresented in statistics. They are more likely to be in abusive situations, rent for sex, insecurely housed, invisible in point-in-time counts, hidden. They also more often keep their children and therefore the children are housed, the adult is just with the children.