Women and homelessness, a complex multidimensional issue: findings from a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Homelessness is an increasingly prevalent issue worldwide. Women represent the fastest growing segment of the homeless population and have differing needs to men. These differences need to be considered by service providers and other stakeholders working with homeless women. A scoping review was conducted to address the question “What is known about issues relating to homeless women in the existing literature?” PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science were searched up until March 2018 with no date limits. The final sample of articles included in this scoping study was 232 from which six themes were extracted: (1) pathways into homelessness, (2) trauma, victimization and adverse childhood experiences, (3) mental and physical health issues, (4) barriers to accessing treatment and experiences with service providers, (5) social support and life satisfaction and (6) strengths, hopes and leaving homelessness. This review suggests a strengths-based approach to addressing women’s homelessness. This approach emphasizes people’s self-determination and strengths and views clients as resilient to problems they encounter in their lives. Future research and service provision should take into account the complexities in the lives of homeless women and recognize the autonomy of women to move out of homelessness.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• homelessness
• scoping review
• strengths
• trauma
• mental illness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Monique Phipps is an early career researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tasmania (Sydney based). She is a clinical psychologist with over 18 years' experience in public mental health services. Her research and clinical interests are in the areas of trauma, trauma-informed care, homelessness and mental health.

Associate Professor Lisa Dalton is Director of Quality and Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Tasmania. She is a Registered Nurse with over 25 years of experience in nurse education, teaching and research. She also established a Registered Training Organization and managed a range of vocational education and training courses in health and nursing. Dr Dalton's research interests include health workforce needs and trends.

Dr Hazel Maxwell currently works as a senior lecturer at UTAS (Sydney). She completed her PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney in 2012. Her PhD focused on the experiences of women from marginalized populations in physical activity. Prior to this, she has worked for over 20 years in a variety of community development, health promotion and education in Australia and the UK. Her research experience is around well-being, physical activity, community sport, social impact, social inclusion and diversity management. She has been exploring social capital and diversity in not-for-profit organizations in sport and health promotion contexts.

Michelle Cleary is Professor of Mental Health Nursing, Associate Head Global, and Sydney Academic Lead, School of Health Sciences at the University of Tasmania (Sydney based).

ORCID

Monique Phipps http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1783-5357

Hazel Maxwell http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0610-4698

Michelle Cleary http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1453-4850