Toronto study - homeless women more likely to suffer sexual assault, mental illness than men

Groundbreaking Toronto survey finds they endure more sex assaults and mental illnesses than men

Laurie Monsebraaten SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER

Homeless women in Toronto are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted and twice as likely to have a mental illness as homeless men, according to a new report to be released today.
Yet despite their poor health and extreme vulnerability, they aren't getting the health care and social support they urgently need, says the report, the first of its kind to document the health needs of homeless women.

"Homelessness has a life-threatening impact on women's health," says the report, co-authored by Street Health, a downtown health clinic serving the homeless, and Sistering, a Bloor St. W. drop-in that provides support to homeless and socially isolated women.

Although only about a quarter of the city's roughly 5,000 visibly homeless population is female, they fare much worse than men, according to the survey of 97 women of no fixed address who were part of Street Health's 2007 report on the city's homeless.

A staggering 84 per cent reported having at least one serious physical health condition compared with 70 per cent of homeless men.Despite an average age of 42, half of the women have arthritis, one in five has heart disease and nearly one in five has diabetes, the survey found.
These women are extremely poor, with 42 per cent reporting that they lived on $2,400 or less per year.

"We know anecdotally that the experiences of homeless women are very different from homeless men and we wanted to take a closer look at that," said Street Health researcher Kate Mason. "We were shocked by what we found."

Nothing in the report surprises Baby G, a tiny woman with a cherubic face who has diabetes and suffers from alcoholic seizures as well as chronic liver, stomach and esophagus infections. She lost her housing eight years ago when she became addicted to crack and has experienced violence.

Last month, the 51-year-old status Indian said a group of crack dealers took her behind a bar and snapped her right ankle with their bare hands. Last winter, after she had been kicked out of a homeless shelter, another group of men offered her a warm place to sleep, but got her drunk and took turns sexually assaulting her, she said.

Thirty-seven per cent of women in the survey were physically assaulted in the past year and 21 per cent had been sexually assaulted one or more times. "You shouldn't have to go through that to get a place to sleep," said Baby G, who said she is kicking crack – "been clean one month and 18 days" – and hoping to move into her own apartment soon.

Anne McWalters, 54, knows what it's like to have a serious illness go untreated.
"Ever since I've been homeless, nobody's been taking care of my epilepsy," she said in an interview at Sistering. "When you have seizures, people think you are a drug addict. In the hospital, people just frown at you because you are homeless."

A "survivor" of the notorious Grandview Training School for girls in Cambridge that was closed in 1976 after reports of sexual abuse dating back to the 1950s, McWalters has been homeless for 11 years but has just been offered a bachelor apartment in a supportive housing building in the city's west end.

Carmel Holder, 52, who suffers from Tourette's syndrome, has been homeless since 2001 when her 17-year relationship broke down and she became addicted to crack. Unlike McWalters, Holder has a family doctor. But it's no help, Holder says, because she can't afford medication to treat the involuntary jerking movements common to her condition.

"They won't give me a drug card. So this is my life," she says covering her face to hide the contortions she can't control. "I was fine on medication. I worked in a bank for 18 years. But everything unravelled in 2001. I need medication. I need a drug card. I need a friend."

Of those surveyed, 42 per cent didn't have a drug benefit card, 60 per cent weren't able to get prescription drugs to treat medical conditions and 56 per cent didn't have a family doctor.

Nancy Marr, 46, one of the 97 homeless women surveyed in the study, got a bachelor apartment a year ago after several years on the street. Since then, she has beat her crack addiction, found meaningful part-time work with Street Health helping addicts stay safe and is now applying to a George Brown College program to become a counsellor to assaulted women and children.

But she and the other women say housing alone isn't the answer. Homeless women desperately need more community health clinics and women-only drop-ins; more women-only drug and alcohol detox beds; and more women-only shelters with staff trained to deal with the severe physical and emotional trauma homeless women experience, the report recommends.

"I hope (the report) shows the crisis and the urgency for action, particularly at a time when the government is talking about an anti-poverty strategy," said Sistering's executive director Angela Robertson.

"Here is a group of individuals in our community who are severely marginalized and whose lives are severely compromised," she said. "There is no reason for this to be happening in a country like Canada."

Toronto Star