Women and Homelessness in Spain

AbstractThis work focuses on the situation of homeless women in present-day Spain. This constitutes both a social and a personal problem embedded in the dynamics of social exclusion and linked to the interplay among structural, family/relational, personal and cultural elements. Although homelessness is mainly a male phenomenon, it also affects 3,000 women, including both women living in welfare facilities for this purpose and those who literally sleep in the street. In the present context, “traditional” homeless people share their condition with new and diverse types of homelessness forming a continuum of processes and trends of social inclusion vs. social exclusion. Within this continuum, the increasing presence of women amongst the excluded, marginalized population is especially relevant