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Entity reports on the state of homelessness for women on the streets of Los Angeles.

Drive between the streets Grand and 1st and you’ll find some of the greatest architectural attractions Downtown LA has to offer. Sunlight rolls off the Walt Disney Concert Hall’s gleaming walls like water. Further down, The Broad’s hulking body draws people into its cool underbelly. It’s hard to imagine that several blocks away is Skid Row, the nation’s largest concentration of homeless people contained in a mere few city blocks.

The sidewalks of Skid Row are empty save for the occasional tent leaning against a deserted building. The people who live on Skid Row are all haunted by their pasts of unstable family situations or substance abuse. By day they walk in traffic asking for spare change and by night they bundle up against the cold.

Right in the middle of this scene is the Union Rescue Mission. URM, a non-profit organization that specializes in providing emergency shelter and transitioning people into permanent housing, is currently filled with women, children and families with nowhere left to turn. As CEO of URM, Reverend Andy Bales has seen an especially difficult year as financial support for emergency shelter has diminished.

This summer, KPCC reported an influx of women and children living on the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles. At the URM alone, the shelter houses 350 single women (up from 168 last year) and 750 women and children compared to only 550 men. KPCC cited a L.A. Homeless Services Authority census that indicated a “55 percent jump in the number of homeless women from three years earlier.” With more women and children facing homelessness, Rev. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission illustrates a variety of reasons for the uptick in homeless women.

In the 30 years Rev. Bales has been involved with URM, domestic abuse and a high cost of living are two of the most coercive factors forcing women onto the streets in Los Angeles. Bales estimated around 70 percent of women with children on the streets are in emergency shelters because of domestic abuse. Other organizations like the ACLU and The National Alliance to End Homelessness posit that “homelessness and domestic violence are inextricably linked.”

On top of that, limited or no family connections usually means these women don’t have a support system in difficult times. In Bales’ words, lack of family support is the “biggest common denominator” for women at URM.  According to a Community Action Network report in 2002, “Nationally, 26% of homeless persons report being removed from their home as a child and placed in foster care or an institution.”

Without a stable home, “Youth in foster care often do not get the help they need with high school completion, employment, accessing health care, continued educational opportunities, housing and transitional living arrangements,” says the Foster Club. As a result, they are more likely to depend on public assistance, be unemployed, imprisoned or homeless.

Along with a lack of support is the struggle with low wages and high rents. The State of Homelessness in America 2015, a yearly report that documents national and state efforts to end homelessness, said, “Despite improvements in employment, the number of people in poverty (4.8 million) and the poverty rate (15.8 percent) remained relatively steady.” Even though more people are finding work, the wages they receive are not enough to cover the cost of living.

The report also said, “Since 2007, the number of poor households with severe housing cost burden has increased 25 percent.” Despite the decrease in households paying 50 percent or more on housing (2.8 percent) within the last three years, the national statistic has increased in the last eight years.

Outside of intimate experience with the issue, research on why women in particular lose their homes is scant. Although several recent studies have been conducted on the topic, it remains a struggle to find relevant research on the plight of homeless women. However, an Internet search quickly yields articles outlining the unique struggles facing women on the streets.

One Mashable article explores feminine needs that many do not associate with homelessness and advises readers on how they can help, such as improving access to sanitary menstruation supplies, child care and safe places to wash up.

The article also dives into a discussion of what it’s like to be pregnant and homeless. Access to quality medical care is necessary for any mother-to-be, but for women without a secure address, having a baby is a complicated experience. As a result, “many put off accessing services out of fear of losing their newborn to child protection agencies, or because they are under-informed about which particular services exist.”

Mashable also cites sources like the American Psychological Association which states that “fourty-seven percent of homeless women meet the criteria for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.” At the Union Rescue Mission, Rev. Bales also addressed mental illness as a serious effect of being displaced. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists references a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report that found “30% of individuals who are chronically homeless have mental health conditions and approximately 50% have substance use problems as well.”

Back at the URM, there are two different sides apparent among the scramble for extra cots, cleaning supplies and space. On the men’s side, people chat and are relaxed. The women’s side of the mission, however, is not as open. Rev. Bales says this side is usually more reserved because women have to process different struggles and traumas than men, such as the unique logistics of personal hygiene as well as the higher risk of sexual assault and abuse.

In fact, a 2006 publication from the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence titled “No Safe Place: Sexual Assault in the Lives of Homeless Women” concentrated the research on sexual violence against homeless women into organized data points. This meta-study found that “92 percent of a racially diverse sample of homeless mothers had experienced severe physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives.”

The publication cited a study from 2000 which found that “13 percent of homeless women reported having been raped in the past 12 months and half of these [women] were raped at least twice.” After years of experience, Rev. Bales knows that “unless a woman gives herself to a man she may not even like, she is vulnerable to every other man on the street.” In an effort to protect women from “predators on skid row,” Bales has had to increase security, which has prompted an increase in operating costs.

On top of the rampant sexual assault against homeless women, the article follows up with the physical and mental effects these assaults have, saying they were “significantly more likely than non-victims to suffer from two or more gynecological conditions” and of homeless women who had been victimized, most participants reported mental health problems such as suicide (45 percent), depression (47 percent), alcohol or drug dependence (45 percent) and PTSD (39 percent).

For women, living on the streets poses a different set of issues than men because of the high risk for sexual abuse and the strong ties those issues have to mental illness. It is for reasons like these that emergency shelters prioritize housing women and children. However, the LA Times reports cuts in government spending for transitional and emergency housing. This is in light of a Department of Housing and Urban Development report that shows permanent supportive housing was more effective than transitional methods.

However, Rev. Bales said that the loss of 2,000 beds means more stress on the remaining emergency shelters in LA. For URM, this means more costs from serving more people with less financial support as the private foundations also funnel their money into permanent supportive housing projects.

Coming from years of experience, Rev. Bales believes that the permanent supportive housing can and should work with temporary supportive services. He also says the best method he has seen for helping homeless women is “Transitional housing that’s highly supportive. With childcare. With group counseling. With therapy. With security. And with the opportunity to move up and go to college.”

Rev. Bales concludes that there are many things we can do to help the problem of increasing women and children on the streets. Donating supplies, time and money to your local shelter are some of the obvious solutions that come to. However, if you’ve ever felt conflicted when someone approached you on the streets for money, some of the most important advice Rev. Bales gave was to “treat that person like a human being.”  It’s time to remember – and actively help – those  who have fallen through the cracks of our society.

Here are a few other reasons you should start volunteering. If you want to learn about another nonprofit that uses the art of mosaics to make a difference in Los Angeles, read ENTITY’s Interview With Sophie Alpert, Inspirational Founder of Piece By Piece.

Entity interviews Sophie Alpert, founder of Piece by Piece.

Edited by Ellena Kilgallon
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