Number of women sleeping rough in Islington rises by a third

A woman sleeping rough in London. Photograph: Adobe

The number of homeless women recorded by Islington Council rose by 36 per cent between 2023 and 2024, as councillors warn of a “broken” support system.

A new report claims that the council’s six-month pilot scheme to tackle homelessness with a gendered approach had helped the council better identify and engage with women on the streets.

The report was authored by the charity Solace Women’s Aid and was put to the borough’s homes and communities scrutiny committee last Thursday (6 February).

It found that, in some cases, women were sleeping rough – despite having a tenancy – because they did not have safe access to their residence.

Policy manager Eleanor Greenhalgh told the Citizen that the situation is made more complex by the exploitation of women facing “multiple disadvantages or vulnerability”.

“Many women have experienced male violence against women and, shockingly, often continue to do so from men in accommodation services, particularly where there is no staffing present, there are shared spaces, and a lack of privacy or security,” she said.

The report adds that “male violence is almost universal for women experiencing homelessness”.

It explained that women experiencing domestic abuse tended to hide themselves away from support networks and risked becoming “invisible” to specialist services.

While the data only points to a rise in recorded rough sleepers, rather than an actual increase, eight women identified as homeless by Solace had not been logged by the combined homelessness and information network (CHAIN) database. This suggests that the real figure could in fact be higher.

CHAIN is used by local authorities across the capital and requires someone to be visibly bedded down to record them as a rough sleeper. However, Solace said it was rare for homeless women to stay in one place.

The charity’s report also notes that women with high-level support needs only have a “minimal range” of suitable accommodation options, heightening the risk of “repeated episodes” of homelessness.

The figures come as the borough’s housing chief, Cllr John Woolf, said Islington “urgently needs the tools to make a real difference” in tackling homelessness, including more government funding and a review of existing legislation.

After London Councils recently warned that skyrocketing homelessness rates were “pushing boroughs to the brink”, Cllr Woolf told the Citizen that the current funding for councils “only covers a small proportion of [our] actual expenditure”.

Woolf said more financial support would allow the local authority to purchase 200 former Right to Buy properties for use as temporary accommodation, while increased capital grant funding would make it easier to build more homes.

Other ways to tackle the issue include “immediate increases to local housing allowance rates so that people on benefits can afford to rent locally”, he added.

“Homelessness is not inevitable – it’s a failure of policy. With meaningful reforms and investment, we can provide the homes and support our residents need and deserve,” he said.

Islington Council confirmed that last Friday (7 February), Town Hall officers met with Ministry of Housing officials to discuss how they could eliminate homelessness in the borough.