Homeless Women

Speech given at the Women's Equality Conference

What does it mean to be a homeless woman? You are spun loose from safety, warmth, nurturance, laughter, those who hold your history and the dreams of your future. Homelessness: where you, and more than likely your children, are vulnerable to every threat of hunger, violence, exploitation, and separation. Homelessness is a topic that has, in the political arena and in the popular culture, disappeared from conversation and struggle.

Even in a boom economy, at least 2-3 million adults and children or nearly 1% of the U.S. population, are likely to experience homelessness at least once a year. Among those living in poverty, the figure rises to at least 6.3%.

In a crashing economy, one without safety nets, it is difficult to imagine how many millions more will now suffer homelessness.

In the early nineties, before the job creation and expanding economy of the Clinton administration blinded some to the cyclical nature of the economic crises of a capitalist economy, homeless advocates were predicting a catastrophe in the realm of 20 to 30 million homeless men, women, and children by the second decade of the 21st Century. With the recent spate of mass layoffs and a stagnant or contracting economy, we may yet reach those horrific levels.

We all too often stereotype the homeless as those highly visible, unemployed men who seek food and comfort at public soup kitchens and shelters. Numerous studies show that the homeless population is really quite diverse:

· 25 -40% work
· 37% are families with children
· 25% are children
· 14% are single women

The fastest growing group of homeless people in the U.S. Is comprised of single women and 2-3 children.

These are pre 2000 census statistics; not that it particularly matters what the 2000 census says about the homeless. The homeless are always undercounted. And homeless women are often described as the "hidden homeless" because they are not usually found out in the open, on the streets, or in public facilities. Women often find shelter with relatives and friends or band together with other homeless women. They often live in dangerous and substandard housing in an attempt to put off homelessness. They live hidden away from the real dangers of the street and all too often invisible to well-meaning helping agencies. Homeless women do not want to be identified and counted - you risk too much.

People who live at or below poverty are at serious risk of homelessness. About one in ten of the extremely poor become homeless. Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are too often unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, healthcare, and education all at the same time. Difficult choices must be made when resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs an increasingly higher proportion of income, 50 to 75% in some areas of the country, that must be sacrificed.

The three major causes of homelessness are lack of affordable housing, declining income, and the shredding of services and government assistance programs.

LACK OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless and other sources, fewer than 30% of those eligible for low-income housing receive it. The private stock of extremely low rent housing fell by almost a half million units between 1985 and 1993. Gentrification, conversion, urban renewal, and the greed of developers are have contributed to the problem. Federal housing programs and subsidies have been slashed by more than 75%. Increased rents, the destruction of traditional low-income housing, and the cuts in federal housing programs threaten affordable housing with near extinction. A minimum wage worker would have to work 87 hours a week to afford a 2-bedroom apartment at 30% of her income - which is the federal definition of affordable housing (30% or less of weekly income).

As we all know, incomes for the poorest Americans has not kept pace

DECLINING INCOME

There ahs been little in the past few decades to counteract a long pattern of stagnant and declining wages among workers in general, but particularly among low income workers.
Despite minor increases in the minimum wage, the real value of the minimum wage has clearly declined. Women comprise 2/3 of minimum wage workers. A majority of these are heads of households. Factors that contribute to the continuing wage decline include: the steep drop in the number and bargaining power of unionized workers; women working in non-unionized service jobs; the decline in well paid manufacturing jobs with the concomitant expansion of lower-paying service sector employment; globalization; the erosion of the minimum wage; and increased nonstandard work such as temporary and part time employment.

Shredding of the safety net

Slashed public assistance has left women homeless or at increased risk of homelessness. The replacement of AFDC - at best a meager and terribly inadequate program for any of us who experienced it - by something even worse, TANF -a non-entitlement block grant program administered by the states, has placed our most vulnerable populations at terrible risk. The median TANF benefit for a family of three is approximately 1/3 of the federal poverty level. Welfare does not provide relief from poverty. With the predictable collapsing economy. the recent surge in layoffs, and the increasing number of women and children being endangered when the lifetime caps on TANF (welfare) eligibility come into play, we are guaranteed to see a surge in the number of homeless women and children.

While welfare caseloads have dropped sharply since TANF replaced traditional welfare (AFDC), this does not mean that fewer people need or are receiving benefits. It does not mean that those who have been dropped from the rolls are employed or are doing well financially. It means that they have "disappeared" and are all too often faring poorly in low wage jobs, often suffering in worse poverty than when they lived under traditional welfare. Extreme poverty is becoming more common for children. Millions of families who have left welfare are worse off economically today because too many state governments are not spending the funds in the TANF block grants to help the transition to work or to care for the children.

Child poverty remains at an historic high. In my home county in Arizona, the child poverty level is 26%

Despite the alleged booming economy of the late 1990's, the average person loving in poverty was poorer at the end of the decade than at the beginning. With the current not so booming economy, things will only get worse.

WOMEN IN PRISON

Another indicator of the economic and social pressures afflicting women and children in the U.S. is the unprecedented and phenomenal increase in the number of women in prison. The past few decades has seen an 8 fold increase in the number of women incarcerated. 80% are in prison for non-violent, mostly economic induced crime. 75% of these women have children.

HEALTHCARE

Lack of affordable healthcare or lack of access to necessary healthcare can lead to homelessness. A healthcare crisis remains the primary reason for personal bankruptcy. The continuing health care crisis in the U.S. with upwards of 46 million people in this country not having health insurance, places low and middle income families at serious risk of homelessness. Women working in unbenefitted labor are at particular risk. With illness comes the risk of the loss of employment and depletion of savings, not that many working women have a lot of savings to begin with.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Battered women who live in poverty are often forced to choose between abusive relationships and homelessness. In a 1998 study of homeless parents, mostly mothers,
22% said that they left their last place of residence because of domestic violence. The 1998 U.S. Conference of Mayors report indicated that 46% of cities surveyed identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. A 1990 Ford Foundation study found that 50% of homeless women and children were fleeing abuse. Women fleeing an abusive relationship often have no place to go. This is particularly true of women living in poverty or older women with few resources of their own.

Homelessness results from a multifaceted set of circumstances, which require women to choose among food, shelter, safety, healthcare, and other basic needs. Only a real political and social struggle to ensure jobs that pay a real livable wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, affordable housing, and access to healthcare will bring an end to homelessness.

This last statement, bringing an end to homelessness, may have almost seemed doable at the end of the 20th Century. That was an illusion and will remain an illusion under capitalism, an economic and social system that requires joblessness, and homelessness and that ignores and punishes the most vulnerable among us. Bringing an end to homelessness is only one of the battles in the ultimate fight for socialism.