Home for Good: Research Report
Published in 2018, The Home for Good project is a three-year collaboration (2017 to 2020) between four organizations who serve women experiencing housing insecurity. This report highlights how gender affects women’s efforts to move from supportive housing to market or public housing. We demonstrate how concerns such as finances and safety are inherently gendered. The barriers to achieving housing security are gendered but the system designed to provide housing are not designed as such.
Collaborators
Alice House, Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, The Marguerite Centre and YWCA Halifax.
Key Findings
The major findings of our research included:
- A lack of existing housing research that used a GBA+ in data and policy analysis
- The absence of a coherent and connected “Housing System” for women to access when looking for housing support
- Women’s pathways through housing insecurity are non-linear, do not follow a predictable trajectory, and are often cyclical in nature
- Women carry the burdens of debt from poverty, instability and prior relationships when trying to secure safe and affordable housing
- There is a clear link quantitative and qualitative link between the Child Welfare System and Homelessness which is unaddressed in policies and programs
- Women with histories of addiction, intimate partner violence, and those with children have additional considerations of safety, affordability, and location in the community when looking for market housing
- Landlords often contribute to the stigmatization of women coming from housing programs, are not trauma-informed, and often do not understand the unique safety concerns of women’s housing
