Homelessness to Hope -- Chapter 13: Surviving the streets: An unequal battle for homeless women

Homelessness, a profound assault on dignified existence and prospect of social inclusion, has emerged as a global challenge due to alarming rise in homeless population the previous decade. Though homelessness affects people of all age group and from all walks of life, with preexisting gender inequality in the society, the homeless women find themselves worst affected. In this backdrop, this chapter assesses endemic level of gender inequality and exclusion of homeless women and survival challenges for them in context of pertinent indicators like accessing basic services, occupational segregation, and gender-based violence. The study is primarily based on the secondary data of both quantitative and qualitative nature taken from census, existing literature and several reports and surveys. The plight of homeless women includes exclusion from accessing basic services like shelter, health, etc., economic segregation, social exclusion. Developing gendered perspective of homelessness is imperative for inclusive transformation of the homeless population.