By Kerry Birtles, Executive Director of Support and Wellbeing at Honeycomb Group
Every year, official figures tell us how many people are sleeping rough on our streets. And every year, those figures fail women.
New evidence from the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census shows just how wide that gap really is. In 2025, just under 3,000 women were identified as having slept rough across participating areas - far higher than official snapshot counts. In some places, the census identified ten times as many women as government data suggests.
This isn’t an anomaly - it’s a systemic failure. Women’s homelessness often doesn’t match our expectations of rough sleeping. And while this year’s data presents this as a current issue, it’s something we’ve known about for years.
While 79% of women reported sleeping on the street, 65% said they had slept in places that would not be counted in traditional street counts - on buses, in fast food restaurants, in squats, or staying with strangers. 27% had stayed with someone they didn’t know, exposing them to significant risk of violence, abuse and exploitation.
When we define rough sleeping too narrowly, we make women invisible. And when women are invisible, they are excluded from support.
For many women, rough sleeping cannot be separated from abuse or violence. The census reinforces what frontline services have long known: domestic abuse, sexual violence and exploitation are near-universal experiences among women facing homelessness.
And yet, the system still treats homelessness as if it is gender neutral – but it’s not.
Women’s experiences are shaped by fear of violence, by coercion, and by the need to stay hidden to survive. This is particularly true for women from minoritised backgrounds, who may face additional risks including racism and further barriers to accessing support. The census shows clear disparities in where women sleep and how visible they are, with many more likely to rely on hidden and transient spaces that fall outside official definitions.
If we are serious about ending rough sleeping, this must change. We need a system that recognises the realities of women’s homelessness. That means:
- Expanding how rough sleeping is defined and measured
- Designing services that are safe and appropriate for women
- Investing in specialist, gender-informed support
- Ensuring that no woman is forced to choose between the street and unsafe accommodation
For us at Honeycomb Group, we’re already on this journey. We are proud to deliver a specialist, supported accommodation scheme for women who have experienced homelessness. By taking a gender-informed and person-centred approach, we can provide a safe, stable environment where women can begin to rebuild their lives, access specialist support, and work towards long-term independence. Over the last year, this specialist approach has enabled us to support women, who have faced difficulties such as family and relationship breakdowns, substance misuse, mental health issues and more.
The Women’s Rough Sleeping Census shows us what has long been hidden in plain sight. The question now is whether we are willing to act on it. Because until we count women properly, we will continue to fail them.
Learn more about Honeycomb Group and the support they provide by visiting www.honeycombgroup.org.uk/womens-homelessness/
