ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how women without an inner sense of ‘home’ can create false sanctuary through their relationships with violent men, their affiliation to gangs and their attempts to find a sense of containment in their own bodies when their minds are unable to afford this. It discusses how actual homelessness perpetuates the inner state of exile and un-belonging and puts the women at increased risk of harm. The chapter outlines the empirical literature that identifies homeless women’s and girls’ increased risk of experiencing violence, and particularly their increased vulnerability to suffering violence within intimate relationships or becoming homeless as a result of domestic abuse. Homeless women are more likely to have suffered abuse in early life and are unfortunately also at increased risk of re-victimisation through later abuse. Women constitute a considerable percentage of the ‘hidden homeless’, since they are less likely to sleep in public spaces due to their vulnerability and heightened risk of sexual and physical assault.
