Finding everyone is only half the challenge

Four years of the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census have shown that women’s rough sleeping is routinely underestimated. In 2025, 65% of women surveyed had slept rough in ways not recognised by the Government’s current definition: on public transport, in libraries and A&E waiting rooms, or walking through the night.

On average, the census identifies as many as 10 times more women than the Government's annual snapshot.

First, outreach needs to change.

Most outreach has been designed around people bedded down on streets and in other visible locations. Women are more likely to be hidden or moving between places, often as a way of navigating violence and abuse. Reaching them means looking beyond traditional locations and working across homelessness, health, domestic abuse, substance use and other services.

But finding women isn't enough.

What happens next matters just as much.

Across more than 3,300 Census responses since 2022, women have repeatedly told us about leaving homelessness accommodation because they felt unsafe. In 2025, 45% of women surveyed had recently left homelessness accommodation.

There are encouraging signs that this Government recognises women's different experiences of rough sleeping. The opportunity now is to turn that recognition into practice, policy and systems change.

Success shouldn't just be fewer people visibly sleeping on our streets. It should mean reaching people our current systems miss — and providing a home that gives them a genuine route out of homelessness, for good.