Designing services for homeless women

The complexity of homelessness suggests that the development of policy and service strategies requires careful analysis of the unique features of identifiable groups within the homeless population. To begin this process, the characteristics and needs of homeless women are specified and their routes to homelessness delineated. Responses to homeless women, with the exception of battered women, have focused primarily on the provision of emergency services. Future policy and services must focus on the adequacy and accessibility of these emergency services as well as the need for transitional and long term housing and social services. The multidimensional nature of homelessness and the heterogeneity of homeless women require a wide range of alternatives that can be tailored to each woman's unique needs for service.