Thinking about different social characteristics in homelessness services and policy
Carolin Hess, King’s College London (SSCR Doctoral Student)
Over recent years, it has become more obvious that we all have several social identities or ‘categories’ such as our race/ethnicity, our gender, our social class, our abilities, our sexual orientation and migration status. Thinking about the way they interact is sometimes called intersectionality. However, it is still a relatively new concept when talking about services for people who are experiencing homelessness, and its significance and impact is not always clear. But when thinking about homelessness, intersectionality is a useful way of acknowledging that people may experience disadvantage in housing or privileges based on several different parts of their social identity.
The evidence about homelessness persistently points at certain communities being over-represented among those who experience homelessness: For example, in the UK People from some ethnic minorities groups are more likely to seek support from a local authority or they are more likely to live in overcrowded households than White British people. Identifying as LGBTQ+ is more likely be a shared characteristic among people who are homelessness, particularly due to discrimination or conflict within family homes than other people, and at least one study has found that people meeting autism criteria are over-represented among homeless people than those who do not. Hostile climates towards immigration and unsupportive environments, negatively affect people with immigration experiences’ access to support in housing provision, and particularly those with no recourse to public funding.
While these suggest a clear impact of intersectionality on people’s experiences of homelessness, we don’t know enough about what this means for people’s access to support. In a recent systematic narrative review of the evidence, we set out to explore this and how ‘intersectionality’ impacts experiences of homelessness, support, and care for women, trans women, and non-binary people.
A systematic review involves a search of as many as possible relevant articles that have been published on a topic. The studies’ findings are then summarised and analysed, and a report is written commenting on the findings and their reliability. We identified 52 studies from several countries (covering 4038 study participants, the majority of these women) which had covered in full or in part our research questions.
We found that intersecting dimensions, such as where a woman, trans woman, or non-binary person who experiences homelessness does not fit dominant group expectations (for example, when being disabled, LGBTQ+, or from a minority ethnic group) oftens create additional and overlapping challenges when seeking support. Most participants in the selected studies struggled to get the help they needed when reporting violence to the police, when being involved with social services, or when trying to access healthcare. They often felt criminalised and policed, rather than helped through specialist and gender affirming care and housing choices. Many of these experiences were shaped by intersectional disadvantages and layers of stigma which became barriers to seek assistance within formal settings.
Participants in the studies reviewed reported feelings of guilt, rejection and not being believed by service professionals. These experiences were often reinforced and impacted by uncertain legal rights, traditional gender views and previous discrimination, for example, when women were Black or trans drug users, mothers, or sex workers. They were sometimes reinforced by policy makers, the community, family or other parts of their social network when the person was blamed for their own choices and circumstances rather than looking beyond their disadvantaged context.
While focusing on women, people working in housing and homelessness services – which are themselves under financial pressures – find themselves often unable to recognise or respond to the full range of anyone’s experiences. However, the delivery of one-size-fits-all services can feel unsafe, and especially for those who don’t fit what organisations see as the “stereotypical” person accessing their support. As a result, people who fall outside these perceptions and are unsure whether a service is for them may avoid or delay getting support and explore other (often unsafe) ways to navigate homelessness. The experience of intersectional dimensions can also increase the multiple needs people are experiencing, which adds to further difficulty to access appropriate (multi-disciplinary and multi-agency) support.
In practice, incorporating the impact of intersectionality often relies on specialist services which try to fill gaps left by ‘mainstream’ government or statutory services: Voluntary organisations which focus on specific communities can be pockets of safe spaces and foster a sense of belonging when statutory services are experienced as inaccessible or exclusive. However, the availability and inclusivity of voluntary organisation depends on where people live, with urban and more affluent areas often having a wider range of services. Categorising intersectional dimensions into different specialist services and using narrow ideas about who qualifies as “mother”, “woman”, “LGBTQ+”, “disabled”, and so on, also risks people’s multiple identities (and thus the impact of intersectionality, for example, if someone is disabled, trans, and/or from an ethnic minoritised group) being further overlooked. It may also make people feel excluded from places they thought about going for support.
Intersectionality can be a difficult and blurry concept to capture as it complicates policies, services, and research that categorise and focusses on certain parts of our identity separately. However, by investigating some of the categories that define our experiences, it can help us to capture a more complete picture of one’s lived experience. An intersectional approach can enable us to question different social positions and power relations which may have influenced a service provider’s responses and the impact of a person’s identity in the way they seek support and engage with services. Toolkits applying social justice and intersectionality perspectives can further help us to adapt these principles in practice and find better ways to work with them, by looking beyond the choices individuals are making while navigating homelessness. The evidence suggests that we need professionals to deliver flexible, empathetic care that is gender-aware, culturally sensitive, and acknowledges people’s individuality.
For the full systematic review on which this blog post was based, see:
Hess C., et al. (2025) A systematic narrative review of the research evidence of the impact of intersectionality on service engagement and help-seeking across different groups of women, trans women, and non-binary individuals experiencing homelessness and housing exclusion. PLOS ONE 20(4): e0321300. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321300
Accessible summary of findings (PDF)
