Updates from St. Martin's House

St. Martin’s House is our women’s housing project in South London.

It’s one of the few women-only accommodation projects in the UK. And it’s something we’re very proud of.

We shared the project publicly last month but since its launch in November 2023, it’s gone from strength to strength.

Here’s everything you need to know about St. Martin’s House.

Why do we have a women’s housing project?

Women’s rough sleeping is something that’s often ignored, misunderstood or perceived as a ‘non-urgent issue’. Our research hopes to change this.

We’ve found that traditional data greatly underestimate the number of women who are homeless because they view the experiences of men as the norm. This means that the homelessness experiences of women are often ignored as researchers and support services don’t look in the right places to find women in need of support.

Meanwhile, our London Women’s Rough Sleeping Census with Solace highlighted that the number of women sleeping rough is much higher than usual reporting shows. It again found that women aren’t being offered the support they need as the experiences and needs of men were centred in most support services.

At The Connection, we knew this had to change.

After working with people with lived experience to decide how to tackle this, we launched our women’s only mornings. This offers women sleeping rough the chance to relax and recover from homelessness with our support in a space that they feel safe and centred in.

This has been a game-changer for The Connection. We are now able to reach women who wouldn’t have reached out for support in the past. We’re seeing over 100 women a year attend our women's-only space. Many of these women weren’t accessing support before, highlighting the importance of women’s only projects.

With St. Martin’s House, we wanted to take this further.

Read the full article on our website: https://www.connection-at-stmartins.org.uk/news-item/womens-housing-project-update/