Women in the shadows

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The cliché of a homeless person is a man, alone, dependent on charities to survive. For women, however, the picture is often more complex. Fewer in number and more discreet, they slip under the radar as they flee the violence and insecurity of shelters. These mixed-sex structures, which are often outdated, are not adapted to this population. A day centre in Brussels, entirely dedicated to them, was created thanks to the tenacity of its director, a convinced feminist, who for a long time thought that women needed specific support. In Luxembourg, associations regret that this type of structure does not yet exist, and could well look to Brussels for inspiration.

Since there are fewer homeless women, there should be fewer facilities. This seemingly logical observation irritates Ariane Dierickx, director of the non-profit organisation l'Ilot, whom we met a few weeks ago in Brussels. For her, women have specific needs that are underestimated: "My first surprise was to realise that workers in this sector were not at all sensitive to the issue of inequalities between women and men. There's still this belief that because there are fewer homeless women and there are a lot of facilities dedicated to women – we sometimes even hear that there are too many – that we're meeting expectations." But this is to misunderstand the needs that women may have, particularly in terms of support. For Ariane Dierickx, women need to be given special attention: "Women were, and still are, sometimes treated in the same way as men. There isn't necessarily a specific intervention that takes into account the trajectories that women go through. We take more of a generalist approach to supporting people."

It's also linked to the way in which this sector was built up, continues the director: "L'Ilot is an organisation that dates back to 1960. It was around that time that the major organisations that still exist today were created. The public authorities took a charitable approach to helping people, which was also quite paternalistic. And it was a time when the majority of these people were in fact single men." The associations have therefore stuck to an outdated model, based on clichés rather than concrete figures.