Jasmine was sleeping in the street on a cold winter night in January, huddled in the stairway of a dance school in London with no cover to protect her from the snow. She was feverish. She had hallucinations. No one stopped to help her.
“Before I was homeless,” she says, “I applied so many times to the council to tell them I was going to become homeless. No one checked that. No one emailed me. No one. Nothing.”
Jasmine, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, had fled an abusive relationship only to find herself sleeping on the streets. She is far from alone – experiences of violence and abuse are “near universal” for women who sleep rough, according to the Single Homeless Project.
I shadowed the charity’s groundbreaking women’s rough sleeping census in London, out to prove that homelessness among women is more widespread than official statistics show. Women experiencing homelessness are often hidden.
Read Jasmine’s story here and my experience shadowing the women’s rough sleeping census here.
