Homelessness and sexual assault bibliography

Over the past 20 years there has been increasing understanding of the gendered nature of homelessness in Australia. Most significantly, this gendering has occurred through the acknowledgement of the links between domestic violence and homelessness and this has played out in Australian social policy through the funding of specialist domestic violence services. However, not all women are assisted by these specialist services - either because they are not homeless due to domestic violence, or because they fall through the gaps in the service system. Homelessness exposes these women to heightened vulnerability to violence. This article considers homeless women's experiences of violence and their implications for homelessness policy. Framed by Australian and Victorian social policy and drawing on a qualitative study of 29 women, all of whom had experienced violence during homelessness, the article argues that greater policy attention needs to be paid to ensuring homeless women's safety.

"Although homelessness is a serious social problem in the United States, there is little direct information about the actual experiences of violence, past and current, among homeless people. This volume, based on the Florida Four-City Study, brings together interview material from 737 women, including structured quantitative interviews as well as in-depth qualitative interviews. The authors investigate how many homeless women have experienced violence in their lives, either as children or as adults, and then examine factors associated with experiences of violence, the consequences of violence, and types of interactions of homeless people with the justice system. The volume concludes with pragmatic and compassionate policy recommendations."

This Wrap considers the needs of victim/survivors of sexual assault who are also experiencing homelessness. Reducing homelessness and supporting those without stable, secure accommodation calls for a 'trauma-informed' model of service delivery. The characteristics of this model and its implications for accommodation solutions, workforce development and the evidence-base are discussed.

This article draws on research involving interviews with 29 women, aged 19-54, who had experienced violence during homelessness. The women reported lack of safety, inadequte security, witnessing violence around them, experiencing harassment, having possessions stolen and experiencing assaults. The system is failing these women even though there is a policy framework in place for a homelessness service system. The article concludes that the best way to help these women is to provide safe accomodation and that there is a clear need for greater resourcing of services.

Violence against women is a key contributing factor in causing and perpetuating women's homelessness in Australia. Young homeless women as a group are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual assaults. This article advocates the incorporation of suggestions from young homeless women about the service responses that would be most useful to them. Research done with such women shows that they want: access to safe, permanent and affordable accommodation; educational and employment opportunities; affordable and quality child care; access to drug and alcohol, mental health and counselling assistance. Australia should be providing these services as part of its international human rights obligations.

What are the effects of childhood trauma on the likelihood of becoming homeless? This article discusses research that examined symptomatic factors of homelessness for young women, and government responses to homelessness. It looks at sexual assault, engagement in self harm and mental health treatment.

A qualitative study was carried out by Catherine House, an emergency and transitional accommodation provider in Adelaide, with 20 persistently homeless single women. All of the women interviewed had experienced long term violence, often including sexual abuse, before becoming homeless. This article reports some of the women's experiences, and their progress towards moving out of homelessness and moving back into the community.

Recent research suggests that there is an association between repeated homelessness and the repeated trauma experienced by a large number of homeless people. This article discusses the impact of multiple and cumulative experiences of trauma on homeless people's capacity to maintain housing and housing relationships.

This article profiles SideStreet, a counselling service of UnitingCare Wesley Adelaide. Too often the effects of abuse are not addressed through young people's trajectory through homelessness.The experience of underlying trauma is the common theme that draws together young people who experience long-term homelessness rather than short-term crisis homelessness. What is often absent from the service response to these young people is any consistent and coordinated response to the effects of the abuse they were subjected to. Often service delivery models fail in combining practical assistance with effective responses to childhood trauma.

This paper considers several groups of victim/ survivors of sexual assault which are less likely to appear within the estimates of large-scale victimisation studies. The authors draw on research that uses targeted approaches to identify the 'hidden' prevalence of sexual assault among adults who were sexually assaulted as children, women from non-English-speaking backgrounds, sex industry workers and young homeless people. As well as being less visible in victimisation surveys, these groups of victim/ survivors are less likely to disclose their experiences or report the sexual assault to the police, and often feel unable to access support.

The Adelaide Central Mission's SideStreet Counselling Service offers support services for young people suffering the effects of sexual abuse who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The author discusses the link between childhood sexual abuse and homelessness, and describes the cycle of victimisation that often results from the effects of abuse. He explains the model on which SideStreet bases its service, including the importance for effective outcomes among homeless young people in tackling the issues related to sexual assault.

here is a higher incidence of young homeless people being exposed to adverse sexual health outcomes and in particular, more sexual assault. In this article, as part of a large survey, homeless young people in Melbourne were asked if they had ever had sex when they did not want to. The authors found that the incidence of involuntary sex was higher than in the general adolescent population, with the common reason being drunk or high at the time. The authors argue that there is a need for programs to provide this group with the ability to avoid unwanted sex.

This article reports findings from a longitudinal study of homeless young people in Melbourne and Los Angeles - Project i. The study looked at the relationship between homelessness and family violence, and found that 43% of homeless young people surveyed nominated violence as an important or very important reason for their leaving home. The study found that almost all violence was physical assault, with little reporting of sexual assault, and that females experienced more violence than males. The article also looks at the types of violence experienced by young people in the home and their relationships to the perpetrators of violence.

An overview is provided of the background to, and services offered by Anglicare's Counterpoint, which provides short-term, crisis accommodation for young women aged between 18 and 25 years who are homeless, or in imminent danger of being made homeless, due to escaping family violence or sexual assault.

Contemporary issues impacting upon the intersections between family violence, sexual assault and homelessness for women and children are explored in this article which uses case studies of women from Aboriginal, European and Fijian backgrounds to highlight many of the factors specifically relating to rural and remote contexts and to issues of gender, race, ethnicity and class.

The experience of lifetime trauma among homeless women in the USA is well documented. Less information is available concerning homeless men. There are no prevalence studies concerning lifetime trauma among homeless people in Australia. The authors' aim was to assess the lifetime prevalence of trauma as reported by homeless men and women in Sydney. They interviewed 119 and 38 women who were visiting or residing at the seven largest refuges for homeless people in inner Sydney, using the lifetime trauma section of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. It was found that the experience of at least one lifetime event of trauma is almost universal among homeless people in Sydney, and is considerably higher than for the USA general population. Reasons for such high prevalence rates are discussed. Depression and post traumatic stress disorder are associated with a history of trauma. Health professionals need to be aware of past events of trauma among individuals who are homeless.

Sexual assault is amongst the highest, if not the highest single cause of homelessness for young women and possibly for young men, states the author. Despite this, there is considerable reluctance amongst providers of services to homeless people and youth to raise the issue of sexual assault with their clients and to collect data on sexual assault. The author argues that this situation is unacceptable.

There has been a conspicuous absence of gender analysis in housing and homelessness policy, argues the author. As a consequence, many housing programs are policies and gender blind. The experience of homelessness for women including female headed households is linked to many interrelated factors including high levels of poverty, lower levels of employment, discrimination in the private rental market, as well as experiences of sexual assault, incest and domestic violence. It is essential, therefore, that programs for homeless women take into account the impact of broader policies relating to income support, housing assistance, sexual assault and domestic violence. Included in this article is an analysis of the impact on women of policies covering housing assistance, home ownership, private rental housing, public housing and community housing. The author points out that policy and program responses to sexual assault and domestic violence have contributed to women's homelessness.

The Young Women's Project (YWP) is a feminist-based support and accommodation service for homeless young women. It was established in Oakleigh in 1991 as a response to the need for a gender-specific service for young women. The YWP provides crisis- and medium-term accommodation, as well as long-term support that includes the YWP Outreach Service, which has a sexual assault focus. Here the author describes her model of groupwork. Called 'Not just a pretty face', the group provides an opportunity for self expression and self insight through the creative arts modalities which include movement, music, work with clay and drama.

This is the second report from the Young Homeless People and Sexual Assault Outreach Project. It identifies themes arising in counselling with young people who have experienced sexual assault; presents profiles of the young people who received counselling under the Project, a profile of the perpetrators, and discussion of accommodation issues for young people who have experienced sexual assault, issues in disclosing sexual assault, and clinical issues related to dealing with young people who seek counselling services. The four appendices consist of information sheets on how survivors of sexual assault can manage flashbacks, nightmares, self blame and guilt, and anger.

Chapters in this book, which are individually indexed, are grouped in three sections: Sexual violence; Law and criminal justice; and Cultural and social issues. They are: Australian history, policy, and denial: violence against women by Sandy Cook and Judith Bessant; Violence and women with disabilities: silence and paradox by Lesley Chenoweth; Mother/daughter rape: a challenge for feminism by Lee FitzRoy; (Hetero)sexed hostility and violence toward lesbians by Gail Mason; Aboriginality and lawyering: problems of justice for Aboriginal defendants in partner homicide cases by Linda Hancock; Judicial bias: confronting prejudice in the courtroom by Jocelynne A. Scutt; Shame, defiance, and violence against women: a critical analysis of 'communitarian' conferencing by Julie Stubbs; Rethinking theories of victimology: men's violence against women by Therese McCarthy; Violence against indigenous women: public and private dimensions by Melissa Lucashenko; Women, war, and the violence of history: an Australian perspective by Susanne Davies; Men's violence in the news: the war against women by Adrian Howe; The violence of displacement: the problematics of survival for homeless young women by Suzanne E. Hatty; Governing sexual violence: criminalization and citizenship by Kerry Carrington.

In this paper presented at the Beyond Louts and Legends conference held in Melbourne in November 1995, the author states that almost all of the young people with whom she has worked have become homeless as a result of the sexual assault they have experienced. Furthermore, having left home, they then become increasingly vulnerable to suffering further abuse due to their age and under developed skills which might otherwise allow them to ensure their own safety independently. Of the many issues faced by homeless young people who have experienced sexual assault, the one issue constantly presented at counselling is image. It is an issue which must be resolved by all people and one in which the impact of sexual assault has far reaching ramifications, the author argues.

CHOICES is a residential program operated by the Mission of St James and St John, for young homeless women who are pregnant or parenting young children. It offers an Intensive Family Based Program and a Groupwork Program with a peer education component. In her presentation at the Beyond Louts and Legends conference, held in November 1995 in Melbourne, the author notes that the issue of self blame throughout her work with sexual assault survivors is a major issue for the survivor to work through. Blaming oneself for the sexual assault, which is sometimes used as a defence mechanism, is very destructive to the survivor.

Numerous studies have now identified the links between child sexual assault and homelessness. The high incidence of sexual assault among young women who are homeless is evidence of the vulnerability of this group. In this article the author describes her work as a sexual assault outreach worker and how her experience has confirmed the evidence of research studies, namely the significant link that exists between sexual assault and homelessness amongst young women.

This report has been compiled from work undertaken between June 1990 and September 1992 by the author, a reconciliation worker at Iramoo Youth Refuge in Melbourne. The reconciliation position developed into a service which provided information and resources to sexually abused young men accommodated at the refuge. During the service's two years of operation it expanded to include the support and resourcing of young men as well as older men from the general community. The information for this report was compiled from young men and older men discussing their experiences of sexual abuse. The reconciliation service also provided extensive secondary consultation and training to workers and services throughout Australia. From the work undertaken by the service, it is apparent that there is a need for greater community education and discussion about the issue of male sexual abuse and the subsequent impact it has on the general community.

This report critically examines the legal and welfare system, from a feminist perspective, to see how they are presently responding to sexual assault in the home. The report's underlying principle is that the criminal justice system fails to adequately deal with perpetrators of sexual assault in the home, consequently forcing some people to leave their family and become homeless. The main questions explored in the report are: How much is sexual assault a cause of homelessness? What are the limitations of the welfare system's response to sexual assault? What is the legislation which determines how the legal system defines sexual assault? What is the legal system presently achieving in its attempts to protect young people? Twenty five young women and five young men aged between 13 and 23 living in Melbourne who had left home due to sexual assault were interviewed for the study. Copies of the questionnaires used in the studies are included.

This report investigates homeless youth as victims of violence after they left home. Data reported is based on interviews with 28 males and 23 females aged between 14 and 18 years of age. Overall the findings indicate that young people are victims of an unacceptably high level of violence after they leave home. Males are more likely than females to report being victims of physical violence, but females are more likely to report sexual assault. The two major sources of violence are strangers and police, however, a closer examination by sex indicates that females are most likely to be hurt by people they know. Topics addressed by the study include: violence experienced in the home; accommodation and employment since leaving school; source of income; alcohol and drug usage; good and bad things about life; fears experienced; the extent of physical and sexual violence; the perpetrators of violence; and the extent to which violence is reported and help sought. A copy of the questionnaire is included.