Skip to main content

As UNANIMA International advocates for Women and Children/Girls, the forthcoming World Homeless Day (October 10th) presents an unmissable opportunity for us to shed light on a human rights issue which affects these populations disproportionately. As noted in previous UNANIMA International research and presentations, for women and families, their homelessness and/or housing insecurity can often be invisible or disguised. “The purpose of World Homeless Day is to Draw attention to homeless people’s needs locally and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness, while taking advantage of the stage an ‘international day’ provides.” (http://www.worldhomelessday.org/)

Relying upon an international lens, and using social justice methodology, our explorations of family homelessness reveal a need for expanding the discussion of homelessness, which so often rests upon the “street homeless” and the most visible populations such as men and veterans, to the realm of women and families. This is not to say that the aforementioned groups do not need attention.

The point is, without bringing the most vulnerable groups to light we cannot understand the issue of homelessness holistically.
Moreover, a lack of attention to Family Homelessness presents the following detriments (among others):

  • Service providers will not have the necessary insight to address the unique and complex needs of families who are homeless, housing insecure, or impoverished. Poverty arguably situates families as housing insecure, imminence of homelessness aside.
  • Those who do suffer from “invisible” homelessness will not be included in service plans, and more importantly: strategies for systemic change. Policy design and implementation alike are proven far more successful when informed by those affected, at every stage of the process.
  • Nation States may avoid responsibility and accountability for a large portion of the homeless/housing insecure population, with little public knowledge of this governmental failure and its ill effects.

There has recently been success in gaining attention from the international community to homelessness; UNANIMA International has played a role in this. But we recognize that this is not enough. Evidence of the growth of Family Homelessness throughout the world, seemingly not unique to one region or the next, displays the timeliness of our own research mandate for Family Homelessness/Displacement and Trauma.

As part of civil society at the United Nations, and through our affiliations and reach as UNANIMA International, we are taking the opportunity of World Homeless Day to reiterate our demand for increased issue salience to Family Homelessness. We present this to the United Nations, all governments, civil society, businesses, and publics around the world.

Leave a Reply