Women’s ‘Journeys’ to Homelessness: Key Findings from a Biographical Study of Homeless Women in Ireland

This Research Paper presents selected findings from a primarily qualitative study of homeless women in Ireland. The study set out to conduct a detailed examination of the lives and experiences of homeless women with specific attention to their homeless ‘pathways’, that is, their entry routes to homelessness, the homeless experience itself and, possibly, their exit routes from homelessness. Sixty women were interviewed in depth for the purpose of the study. This paper explores the women’s routes or ‘journeys’ to homelessness. The women’s stories of becoming homeless resist easy categorisation, highlighting the diversity and complexity of their experiences. Multiple roots and contextual factors were replete in their accounts of becoming homeless with an apparent compounding effect with each consecutive or ‘new’ homeless episode in the case of a large number. Whilst not an experience common to all in the study, multiple entry points to homelessness emerged as a key feature of the women’s homeless ‘journeys’.