Women’s Rough Sleeping Census

Women’s rough sleeping is often transient, intermittent and hidden.

To stay safe, women on the streets will often stay hidden. Hidden from the dangers of being visible on the streets, but also hidden from the outreach and homelessness services they desperately need and deserve.

It means existing statistics significantly underestimate the number of women who are rough sleeping. Existing data collection methods have been developed without women’s experiences in mind, so they fail to capture the true scale of the issue.

Our census aims to change that. It was designed to improve understanding of the extent and nature of women’s rough sleeping, using gender-informed data collection to evidence the scale of the problem and the need for better integration between homelessness and VAWG services and sectors.

In October 2022, we designed, planned and coordinated a Pan-London women’s rough sleeping census, alongside a coalition of leading homelessness and VAWG charities. This was the first such project of its kind. The full report of this census is below.

In September 2023, the census was delivered in partnership with Solace across 41 local authorities in London and England. Our 2024 census took place in September.

No woman should have to sleep rough and endure the devastating consequences of life on the streets.

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2024 Census

The 2024 census took place from September 23rd to September 29th. We will publish the results in early 2025.

If you’d like to receive the latest information, reports, and resources about the census, sign up for this mailing list.

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2023 Census

The 2023 data review, conducted by CGL, estimated there may be up to nine times as many women rough sleeping across England than the Government’s annual Rough Sleeping Snapshot suggests.

The week-long national census of women sleeping rough was conducted in 41 local authorities across England. Outreach teams conducting the census found 815 women, a far higher number than Government counts in many of the areas indicate. Some local authorities found stark discrepancies.

Read the full story here

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2022 Pan-London Census

In October 2022, we designed, planned, and coordinated a London-wide women’s rough sleeping census alongside a coalition of leading homelessness and VAWG charities.

The census came on the back of our research into women’s homelessness in Camden, which explicitly noted the need for better data collection to evidence the scale of women’s rough sleeping, and the need for better integration between homelessness and VAWG services and sectors.

“I would roam around and travel on buses. As a female, you can’t just go to the corner of a road and sleep. It’s not safe.“

Our report Making Women Count, written by Praxis Collab, sets out the essential findings and lessons from the first-of-its-kind 2022 census of women sleeping rough in London.

The census found 154 women rough-sleeping in London in a week. This indicates a higher number of women sleeping rough in London than previously believed – and this may still under-represent the actual figure. Counting women sleeping rough is particularly complex as many are not in touch with support services and are more hidden than their male counterparts.

The report emphasised that women’s rough sleeping is often transient, intermittent and hidden. This means that women are often not represented in official statistics and, crucially, are often precluded from accessing support and housing. The effects of this inequality of access are severe: experiences of violence and abuse are “near universal” for women who sleep rough, and the average age of death is just 43 years old, even younger than their male counterparts (45). This means women experiencing homelessness are living just half as long as most women in the UK where the most common age of death for is 89.