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Homeless Women in Public Spaces: Strategies of Resistance

Rionach Caseya; Rosalind Goudiea; Kesia Reevea a Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

To cite this Article Casey, Rionach , Goudie, Rosalind and Reeve, Kesia(2008) 'Homeless Women in Public Spaces:

Strategies of Resistance', Housing Studies, 23: 6, 899 916 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/02673030802416627 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673030802416627

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Housing Studies, Vol. 23, No. 6, 899916, November 2008

Homeless Women in Public Spaces: Strategies of Resistance

RIONACH CASEY, ROSALIND GOUDIE & KESIA REEVE
Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Shefeld Hallam University, Shefeld, UK

(Received September 2007; revised August 2008)

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ABSTRACT This paper explores homeless womens use of public spaces and buildings in England. In doing so it problematises the spatial boundaries typically presented in the literature and research which suggest homeless women are largely conned to institutional or private spaces of homelessness. The paper argues that homeless women also use highly visible public spaces and semi-private spaces, and that these practices can be conceptualised in terms of resistance. Homeless women challenge the rules associated with occupying public spaces that either directly or tacitly exclude them, and they engage in identity work to resist being labelled as homeless. KEY WORDS : Homelessness, gender, public space, resistance, identity

Introduction Despite an extensive academic and empirical literature exploring varied aspects of homelessness, womens geographies of homelessness have received surprisingly little attention. Homeless womens relative invisibility on the streets and their potential vulnerability in public places has led to assumptions about gendered use of space which serves to (implicitly and explicitly) situate homeless women in the institutional or private realms. This paper attempts to redraw these spatial boundaries through analysis of homeless womens use of public spaces and buildings in England. The term public is used in this paper to denote public use rather than public ownership and therefore incorporates privately and semi-privately owned spaces which are open or accessible to the general public (such as shopping centres, airports and business parks). It demonstrates that homeless womens geographies are not conned to the institutional spaces of homelessness and the private realm of friends and families homes, as much literature and research would suggest, but frequently extend into public spaces and buildings. The paper then moves on to explore the strategies women use to negotiate the boundaries of the public realm, including the presentation of self (Goffman, 1959) which enables being in
Correspondence Address: Kesia Reeve, Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Shefeld Hallam University, Howard Street, Shefeld, Yorkshire S1 1WB, UK. Email: [email protected] ISSN 0267-3037 Print/1466-1810 Online/08/06089918 q 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02673030802416627

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public space. In doing so it attempts to capture a sense of personal agency and resistance (Parker & Fopp, 2004). As Foucault (1984) argues, there are no relations of power without the potential for resistance. A focus on the embodied human subject within the spaces of daily life, in other words on the mundane and everyday, provides a potential for exploring forms of resistance. However, it is important to note that the focus on agency does not imply the annulment of structural inuences, or indeed the valorisation of homeless womens capacity to cope with their difculties. Rather, it argues that given the highly constrained situations in which they nd themselves, there is nonetheless a measure of resistance to spaces of exclusion that has yet to be articulated in the homelessness literature. Methods This paper draws on research conducted in England in 2006 exploring single womens experiences of homelessness (single is dened here as without dependent children). The focus on single women reected the remit of the research brief as set out by the commissioning body, Crisis, a national UK homelessness charity. Data collection focused on in-depth qualitative interviews with a total of 44 single homeless women, and a questionnaire survey of 144 single homeless women. Survey questionnaires were deposited in agencies across England and responses were received (randomly) from women living in a total of 17 towns and cities, including London. A small proportion of the 144 survey questionnaires (approximately one-quarter) were also conducted face-to-face by members of the study team, but the self-completion technique enabled greater geographical reach of the survey and produced a higher response rate than would otherwise have been achievable within the project resources. The 17 towns and cities in which the women participating in the survey lived represent a reasonable cross section of place types (including large cities, small towns, different regions etc.). However, this was not the product of a sampling framework and so no claims can be made regarding geographical representativeness. In addition, the numbers of women participating in the survey from different towns and cities varied widely (from just one or two in some places to more than 10 in others), rendering any comparative analysis impossible. A wide range of service providers, including day centres, soup kitchens, hostels, bed and breakfast hotels, rough sleeper outreach workers and health centres were visited or contacted in a concerted effort to access women living in a wide range of temporary accommodation situations. The survey sample was also specically designed to include minority ethnic women and women across a range of ages so as to reect diversity within the population as best we could. The survey asked questions about: respondents current and past housing situations, including whether or not they had applied to statutory housing providers; the services they used as well as those from which they had been excluded and their experiences of being homeless. The survey pointed to several issues that required further exploration, such as womens experiences of local authority housing services, rough sleeping, their day-to-day lives and routines and their views on the services available to them. Hence, the rationale for the subsequent in-depth qualitative interviews. These qualitative interviews were conducted in Leeds, London, Shefeld and Norwich, cities where the researchers had knowledge of, and contact with, agencies providing services to homeless women. Interviews took a biographical approach, exploring issues

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such as womens homelessness experiences, their daily lives and the relationship between their life histories and their homelessness. In-depth interview respondents ranged in age from 16 to 59, and 30 per cent were from minority ethnic groups. Women of African Caribbean, Black African, British Asian, Irish, Roma Gypsy and Other White origin took part in the study. However, given the apparent prevalence of hidden homelessness (i.e. non service-led situations such as staying with friends, in squats and sleeping rough) and the non-static nature of homelessness (Reeve et al., 2006, 2007), obtaining accurate gures regarding the size and prole characteristics of the female homeless population is challenging, making it difcult to gauge the representativeness of the survey and interview samples. It is also important to note that although the nal survey and in-depth interview samples were relatively ethnically diverse, the numbers of women identifying themselves as belonging to each particular ethnic group were too small for comparisons between groups to be made. The nal samples included women who had stayed temporarily in hostels, bed and breakfast hotels, refuges, squats, with friends and family, with strangers and on the streets. Respondents had become homeless from a diversity of situations, for a wide range of reasons, and the data revealed many different trajectories through homelessness. Many had multiple needs, with drug and alcohol dependency commonplace and experience of violence and sexual abuse prevalent. Some were earning a living through sex work and others were engaging in unwanted sexual liaisons in order to put a roof over their head. This paper does not delve into the specics of these situations and experiences or present detailed empirical evidence about the lives of the homeless women interviewed (but see Reeve et al., 2006, 2007 for full empirical ndings). Rather, it focuses very specically on the role of public places in the lives of homeless women, and the strategies they employ there to negotiate the (practical, emotional and ontological) impacts of homelessness. Homeless Women and Spaces of Exclusion A reading of relevant literature points clearly to the exclusion of homeless women from public spaces. For example, through a combination of direct assertions, choice of focus, and implied silence, homeless women are rarely acknowledged as inhabitants of public spaces in the housing and homelessness literature. Rather, their geographies are typically portrayed as restricted to homelessness spaces such as night shelters, hostels and day centres and, sometimes, to the streets. Alternatively, the prevalence of hidden homelessness amongst women is noted, in particular their reliance on the homes of friends and family (private, domestic space) for temporary accommodation. Thus Wardhaugh (1999) suggests that homeless women typically remain on the margins of institutional spaces of homelessness while concluding that the streets are the quintessential male space (Wardhaugh, 1999, p. 104). Indeed, it has become almost a truism that Women are much less likely than men to sleep on the streets, or in public places (Smith, 2005, p. 143). Homeless women are characterised as only occasionally moving into the informal spaces of homelessness that punctuate the public spaces of the city, and usually only when under the protection of a man (Wardhaugh, 1999). On a similar note, May et al. (2007), although presenting a broader view of homeless womens geographies, also articulate a limited use of public space beyond the streets. Other literatures conceptualise space in terms of legitimacy and exclusion, i.e. in terms of who is legitimately entitled to occupy different forms of spaces, or to whom particular

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spaces rightly belong. Within this context much has been written about womens experiences of public space and gendered meanings of place. Contemporary research has theorised womens perceptions and use of public spaces as shaped primarily by gender constraints (Day, 2000), often linked to the increased danger that being in public places pose for women. The notion that women are physically endangered in the public sphere by virtue of their gender underpins much of this geographies of fear literature (Koskela & Pain, 2000; Pain, 2001). The danger violence poses to women is said to generate different meanings for men and women of what a safe place is, in turn creating distinct gendered use of public space. Womens distinctive relationship with the home as a product of gendered experiences is also noted (Darke, 1991; Watson & Austerberry, 1986). Much of this literature is underpinned by the separation of spheres ideal, a Victorian concept that delineated private domestic spaces for women while public spaces and activities were more properly the domain of men. Literature that explores gendered meanings and perceptions of place, particularly that focused on the home (whether as a site of power or oppression), tends to reinforce this association of women with the private, domestic realm (see Mallett, 2004, for a useful discussion about home and gender). As Kemp (2001), argues, despite womens many . . . inroads into the public sphere . . . this gendered ideology continues to shape womens everyday lives, as well as social expectations about womens experiences and behaviour (p. 15). The difculties this presents for women who are homeless is acknowledged by some homelessness scholars. In the context of exploring homeless womens perceptions, geographies and identities, Radley et al., (2007) for example, argue that it remains transgressive for women to appear wherever they wish at whatever time (p. 456). Watson (1999) similarly suggests that homeless womens bodies can be seen to represent a challenge to the feminine body, the mother or wife located in the home . . . (p. 96) and that the sight of a woman sleeping on the streets disrupts and threatens public/private boundaries. Within these literatures, then, it is homeless womens gender that excludes them from rightfully consuming or claiming public space. On the other hand is the literature pointing to increased regulation of public space and of the rules that govern and control these spacesrules which typically disallow homeless peoples presence? Here, it is not womens gender but their homelessness status that (literally) denies them use of public spaces. This point is made in various different ways by scholars of different disciplines and theoretical standpoints, but all suggest a form of legitimacy attached to public spaces which does not extend to homeless people and other marginalised groups. Some commentators argue that homeless people tend to be relegated to the marginal spaces of cities in terms of where they are tolerated or expected to be. Inhabiting or moving through spatial domains associated with housed people is discordant with this urban order, contaminates public space, poses risks for the homeless person, and requires them to tactically nd ways of being in spaces from which they are excluded (Cloke et al., 2003; Duncan, 1983; Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). Discussion of the control of public spaces can also be found in post-modernist literature which recognises, albeit via an alternative theoretical argument, meanings attached to the urban form in post-industrial society which effectively exclude particular (poor and marginalised) groups. Zukin (1998, p. 825) like others (e.g. Lash & Urry, 1994), describes the changes in the material and symbolic fabric of cities in terms of a shift from spaces of production to spaces of consumption where cities become consumption spaces for the middle classes (Zukin, 1998) and environments are created to facilitate this consumption (Shields, 1989).

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Regulation and control of these spaces (CCTV, wardens, security guards, rules of occupancy and behaviour and so on), as a means of protecting and preserving their function as a space for legitimate users, is inevitable. Hence, homeless peoplethe ultimate awed consumer (Bauman, 2005), characterised as threatening by virtue of their difference (Sibley, 1995)face rejection from these spaces. How then, and in what ways, do homeless women, who are marginalised by virtue both of their gender and their homelessness status, use public space? The research here suggests that homeless womens geographies are certainly not limited to institutional or private spaces, and that their supposedly limited occupation of public space is not restricted to the streets as much of the homelessness literature would imply. Far from remaining on the margins (May et al., 2007; Wardhaugh, 1999) many of the women participating in this study were frequent users of public spaces and were adept at being in, and using these spaces for their own needs. It is also suggested here that womens use of public spaces can be understood in terms of two key forms of resistance: challenging the rules of legitimacy regarding use of public space; and resisting homelessness identities. The remainder of this paper attempts to substantiate these claims, rst demonstrating that homeless women do occupy public spaces and that these spaces full an important function in their everyday lives, before it moves on to discuss womens use of public space in the context of resistance. Homeless Women in Public Spaces Public places, buildings and facilities were very prominent in the accounts of the homeless women interviewed, although the manner in which they occupied these spaces ranged widely from whiling away a few hours in a shopping centre to extended periods of rough sleeping. Libraries, art galleries, museums, bookshops, public toilets (on-street and in public buildings such as hospitals), business and retail parks, airports, parks, car parks, the space surrounding public and private buildings (steps, grassed areas, bin-bays and stairwells), and the streets all featured in respondents accounts of the ways in which they carried out day-to-day activities and negotiated their way through homelessness. These public and quasi-public spaces served multiple functions for rough sleepers and non-rough sleepers alike: as places for eating, sleeping, washing, resting, sheltering from the weather, laundering and changing their clothes, charging their mobile phones, and engaging in leisure activities (such as reading or listening to music). Far from existing in the shadows or being restricted to the institutional spaces of homelessness these women were boldly, and often visibly, carrying out their daily functions in public. The apparent prevalence of rough sleeping among the homeless women participating in the research (a statement which perhaps runs contrary to popular perception) partly explains these ndings: the majority (62 per cent) of the 144 survey respondents had slept rough during an episode of homelessness. Whilst the research here suggests that homeless women tend to do rough sleeping differently to homeless men, rejecting the highly visible prole of many male rough sleepers in favour of hidden locations (such as bin bays, storage units, covered car parks, and out of town locations not recognised as rough sleeper sites), the fact of rough sleeping nevertheless necessitates occupancy of public spaces. However, use of public spaces by respondents was certainly not conned to women sleeping rough. Many of those housed temporarily (in hostels, B&Bs, squats, with friends etc.) could not remain in their accommodation during the day, felt uncomfortable doing so, or had no access to essential amenities and facilities there. Whether rough sleeping or not,

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public spaces represented an essential resource in the absence of formal service provision. Homeless women in rural areas, suburban locations and other places where services were few and far between relied upon public places to meet their daily needs (warmth, shelter, washing etc.). This was also true for many women, regardless of their location of residence, early in the morning, or at weekends and bank holidays when homeless facilities and other services tend to be closed. Public spaces were not only places of necessity but also sometimes represented positive, viable and preferable spaces of everyday life and survival. It is the dangers associated with public spacesan assumption often allied to notions of female vulnerabilitywhich tend to underpin assertions (or assumptions) situating homeless women in the safer spaces of the private and institutional realms. The logic, it seems, is that surely a homeless woman would avoid washing/sleeping/resting in a public place if she had any alternative. But this fails to appreciate the ways in which private and institutional spaces can also represent places of danger for women, in both literal and gurative ways. Institutional spaces for homeless people such as hostels, night shelters and day centres were perceived by some women participating in the research as male dominated threatening environments, and several had been sexually assaulted (including rape) in night shelters. In a context of domestic violence, private spaces are precisely where the danger is located. As Smith comments, many women face their greatest threat within the home (Smith, 2005, p. 143), and several women interviewed for this study had left their homes to escape violence, despite knowing that sleeping on the streets was the inevitable result of this decision. One woman explained that she would rather live on the streets than ever live with him again. Institutional spaces for homeless people can also represent a threat (or danger) to womens identity and perceptions of self, an issue returned to later in this paper. Utilising places such as homelessness day centres and hostels reveals a woman as homeless, to others and to herself. The consequences of this for womens self-perception and feelings of psychological and emotional well-being can be more dangerous than the threats posed by public places. Homeless Womens use of Public Spaces: Forms of Resistance It is suggested here that homeless womens use of public space can be conceptualised in terms of resistance. First, it is argued that simply by occupying and utilising public spaces homeless women are asserting their right to be in these spaces, challenging the rules of legitimate occupancy which render them unwelcome there. They are, in effect, resisting their exclusion from the public realm. Second, use of public spaces can also be understood as an attempt by women to resist the absorption of homelessness into their identity and perceptions of self. Each of these two forms of resistance is explored in turn below. The distinction between simple access to public space and the right to be in that space is acknowledged. However, it is suggested that although womens strategies for being in public space usually relied on anonymity, they were staking a claim, however tenuous and conditional, to being in that space. Resisting Exclusion from Public Space Homeless peoplealongside other deviant, difcult, other or different groupstend to be unwelcome in places such as libraries and galleries, parks and shopping centres, their

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presence a threat to the function and meaning of that space and the (ordinary) people inhabiting it (Hubbard, 1998; Radley et al., 2007; Sanders, 2004; Sibley, 1996). Geographical boundaries preserve social distinctions, ensuring those deemed a threat to the moral, social or urban order are spatially marginalised (Pratt & Hanson, 1994; Sanders, 2004; Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). Homeless people are out of place in the public realm, and homeless women even more so: a homeless woman carrying out daily activities (washing or sleeping, for example) in a non-domestic space is conceived as particularly disturbing and transgressive. However, the data here suggests that homeless women do nd ways of inhabiting public spaces, of asserting themselves and claiming a right to occupy space, challenging the geographical boundaries laid down for them and carving out a space in the public realm. Moreover, they actively and strategically use these spaces to their own ends and for their own needs and purposes, extracting and deriving positive benet from them. Within the context of the exclusion facing homeless women, it is suggested that their use of public spaces can be understood as a form of resistance: they are not passively accepting the regulation of public space and the attached rules of usage, but resist their exclusion and the perceptions of gendered spatial belonging which deem them unwelcome, or out of place there. However, to do so requires ingenuity and resourcefulness, for measures are in place to maintain spatial divisions and eject non-legitimate users. For example, the increase in social control mechanisms in public places to protect space from people or activity discordant with its function are noted, including less conspicuous forms of surveillance such as observation by other members of the public (Bauman, 1983; Snow & Mulcahy, 2001). Thus, being where one is not supposed to be, and doing what one is not supposed to do relies upon reading the rules governing public spaces and devising strategies for circumventing or complying with them. Blending in with, and behaving like the general public, not being (appearing as) homeless, using spaces only at particular times of the day or night and for limited periods were all typical conditions, or rules, attached to the use of public spaces by the women who were interviewed. Written rules such as vacating premises or public parks before a certain time were regularly negotiated with security staff and park attendants. There were also examples in which the collusion of professional staff such as librarians was paramount in allowing women to bend the rules and spend whole days in libraries, snoozing as well as reading and listening to music. Unwritten rules such as prohibition on washing of the body or clothes in public toilets, or the storage of personal possessions for safe keeping, were circumvented by several respondents, with the willing co-operation of toilet attendants. By reading and understanding these, and other rules of usage, and by nding ways of circumventing or complying with them, the homeless women participating in the research managed to occupy public spaces and buildings both under, and beyond the gaze of the gatekeepers (security guards, wardens, attendants, shop staff) whose function it is to impose or uphold these rules. The women interviewed were adept at identifying these gatekeepers and behaving in ways that satised their rules to secure access to, or permission to use, that space. Recognising that homelessness is not permitted or tolerated in many public places and buildings, presenting oneself as non-homeless was a common strategy employed by many of the women interviewed (additional reasons why respondents presented themselves in this way are discussed in the following section). The quotations below illustrate that this involved particular physical (bodily) as well as behavioural presentations of self where both appearances and behaviours typically associated with homelessness, or expected of homeless people, were avoided:

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The police were aware I was there [sleeping in the airport] but they were pretty good with me actually . . . I think because I was fairly clean. There were a few people there who, you know, they were obviously homelessness and they [police] moved them on. (emphasis added) Im the only person sleeping there and in that sense I have to say maybe I have the advantage of being a woman and very tidily dressed. I think if I hadnt been, and if Id wanted to sleep, i.e. lie down with sleeping bags and everything that wouldnt be allowed. (emphasis added) The quotation directly above demonstrates the subtleties and complexities of the rules that homeless women read and negotiate, as well as the way in which physical presentation and behaviour both assume importance in this context. The rules governing this particular place (a business park) dictated that sleeping would be tolerated but only in particular circumstances: sleeping upright on a bench was allowed, providing the sleeper was neatly dressed, but lying down would not be tolerated. This was not uncommon and several respondents described always sleeping in the sitting position and never with paraphernalia (blankets, sleeping bags and such like) that would reveal their activity. Blending in by adopting expected behaviour, i.e. behaviour associated with users of a particular public place, was another way in which respondents disguised their activities to secure access to public spaces. The woman quoted above, for example, explained that while sleeping rough in the airport she carried a bag that resembled holiday luggage, thereby ensuring that she could not be distinguished from other airport users. Other examples, include standing in telephone boxes as if making a call when actually taking shelter, listening to a CD in the music booth of a library in order to nap, and reading a book on the sofa of a bookshop while charging a mobile phone in the nearby electrical socket. The women interviewed were also quick to grasp that use of certain spaces would go unnoticed, or would be tolerated, at particular times of the day and always adhered to this timetable. They understood that absenting themselves at certain times, or for periods of time, would facilitate their continued use of that space. Avoiding detection by gatekeepers likely to remove homeless people was often the goal here. Thus one woman, having found a way of gaining access to an ofce building, identied the periods of time when no staff were present, namely during the night before the cleaners arrived at 6am, and a further period of time after the cleaners vacated the building and before ofce staff arrived. Another woman, using her storage unit as temporary accommodation, explained the selfimposed restrictions she placed upon her time there: Youre not really supposed to be there so I used to go in very late at night and leave early in the morning. Similarly, the woman sleeping rough in an airport (quoted earlier) managed to avoid detection altogether by airport security staff for some time, partly by absenting herself from the space periodically: I wasnt there full time . . . Sometimes Id be there two or three nights and then they would start to recognise me and Id go back on the streets again.

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In other situations, it was the gatekeepers themselves who determined the precise time during which women could use a space or building (via both spoken and unspoken agreements) and there were many examples of gatekeepers facilitating the presence of respondents in public spaces within agreed time frames and provided certain additional rules were adhered to. Thus one woman was given (explicit) permission to wash and brush her teeth in a public toilet every morning so long as she completed her ablutions before 7am, at which point the attendant would no longer tolerate her presence. Another was (tacitly) allowed by security guards to sleep on the steps of a museum providing she left no trace of her presence, for example by removing the cardboard on which she slept, and was gone before daylight. It will already be apparent from the data presented above that these different ways of being in public spaces often relied upon the collusion of gatekeepers who, despite their function as upholders of the very rules which exclude homeless women, were sometimes willing to tolerate their presence. This relied upon a process of (sometimes tacit) negotiation in order to reach an accommodation whereby women agreed to abide by certain rules (leaving the area by a certain time, blending in, behaving in a way consistent with the function of the space and so on) in return for inclusion in that space. Many of the women interviewed, and particularly those consistently using the same spaces, had successfully negotiated such agreements. These relationships occasionally developed further. For example, a certain reciprocity was involved in a small number of cases. The presence of the homeless woman sleeping on the steps of the museum, for example, was perceived as benecial by security staff monitoring that space: she kept the steps free of litter (as per her part of the unspoken agreement) and her presence was thought to deter other, more troublesome persons such as grafti artists from approaching the building. In other cases gatekeepers behaviour towards the homeless woman in their space gradually shifted from tolerance to helpfulness. The woman mentioned above who washed each day in a public toilet, for example, described how her relationship with the attendant developed over time: After I got to know er . . . shed give me a cubicle and shed give me a bowl of hot water . . . she kept my toothbrush and everything in there [her ofce]. Similarly, the woman who spent time in a business park explained that, having behaved as expected for a period of time, the security staff provided access to an enclosed corridor once or twice a month so she could sleep lying down. Another rough sleeper described her relationship with a park attendant in similar terms. Rather than removing this woman from the park before he locked the gate at night (as his job dictated) he checked she was within the park railings, recognising that she was safer there than in a less secure open space: He knew I was in there. He used to lock me in on the night time. He used to say be careful and when he used to come round in the morning he used to wake me up. Occupying public spaces under, rather than beyond, the gaze of gatekeepers carries risks for homeless women: as soon as a woman is revealed to be homeless she risks exclusion. She may, for example, fail to reach an accommodation with the gatekeeper, or may be unable or unwilling to meet the conditions attached to her use of the space. However, having been identied as homeless that space is then closed to her for an indenite period.

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It is not surprising, then, that strategies to avoid detection were usually employed before efforts to negotiate overt access to a public space. However, gatekeepers do not only represent part of the exclusionary apparatus operating in public spaces, they also afford a degree of protection (witness the experience of the rough sleeper in the park quoted above, for example). Thus several women talked about actively seeking out, rather than avoiding, public spaces overlooked by CCTV cameras and other security devises, perceiving surveillance as a safety measure rather than a mechanism of exclusion. In the words of one woman: Im very visible and thats why I stay there, for security reasons, because its patrolled every hour by security guards . . . I have full visibility of a camera all the time. This emphasis on visibility is of interest given that invisibility is central to many of the tactics employed by homeless women to gain access to public spaces. Invisibility is also a key requirement placed upon homeless women by gatekeepers, whose primary concern is to protect legitimate service users from the homeless persons presence. As long as the woman remains invisible, this is achieved. Many of the rules and strategies described aboveusing public spaces at times of the day less popular with other service users, blending in by looking like everyone else, and disguising inappropriate activities (such as sleeping)can all be conceived as strategies of invisibility which allow both parties to hide the fact that a homeless woman is present in the space. However, invisibility need not rely upon a literal hiding of the physical form. In many of the examples provided here, rendering their homelessness status invisible allowed respondents to be highly (physically) visible, without risking exclusion. Thus the homeless woman who spent time in the airport slept many a night amongst hundreds of people, in full view of the general public and security staff, but remained, effectively, invisible. That homeless women and other marginalised groups do not passively accept the rules governing public spaces or their exclusion from them is acknowledged, and the tactics and strategies employed by the excluded have been explored. Sibley (1995) and Foucault (1984), for example, remind us of the power dynamics operating in space and that where there are power relations there is the potential for contestation and resistance. The weaker player can always, and often does, nd ways of subverting the power exerted by the dominant controller of space (De Certeau, 1984; Shields, 1989). Snow & Mulcahy (2001), for example, identify four types of response to spatial constraint by homeless people in Arizona, only one of which involves complying with the dominant power by exiting the contested space. There are also parallels with the strategies adopted by other marginalised groups such as sex workers. Some of the homeless women interviewed for the current research were also involved in sex work, but an analysis of their use of public space has been carried out in the context of their homelessness and not in the context of their sex work. Sex workers, like homeless people, are an undesirable groupa deviant otherwhose presence in particular spaces is conceived as a social threat to the moral order (Sanders, 2004). Within this context Sanders, for example, demonstrates that sex workers too devise strategies of resistance in public spaces. She points to the ways in which women in the sex industry adapt working practices to accommodate or resist the mechanisms of exclusion operating against them (in this case intensive policing, community protestors and vigilantes), including adapting their working timetables and moving between geographical locations to avoid detection.

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This point demonstrates that it is not just the most respectable of homeless women who manage to occupy spaces typically out of bounds to marginalised groups. The ndings here do not apply only to those closest to the non-homeless population by virtue, perhaps, of having been homeless for a short period, or not displaying characteristics relatively prevalent amongst the homeless population such as drug use or mental ill health. Some of the very marginalised amongst the sample of respondentsthe sex workers, the dependent drug and alcohol users, the women displaying all the physical characteristics of the stereotypical bag ladywere equally adept and successful at occupying public space both under and beyond the gaze of the gatekeepers. Resisting Homelessness Identities The remainder of this paper focuses on the diverse identities of homeless women and in particular the many ways they resist being labelled as homeless. This resistance to being identied as homeless is signicant because it inuences how, and in what ways, women use public spaces and buildings. It also offers some insight into the reasons why homeless women sometimes reject homeless services and accommodation, and subsequently rely on the public domain to meet their needs. In attempting to make sense of the ndings here, Goffmans (1959) reading of identity seemed pertinent to conceptualising the strategies and processes by which the homeless women interviewed inhabited and moved through public space. He asserts that most actors want to appear credible to others and want (or need) to make a good impression. In this regard he recognises spoiled identity and the stigma that goes with it (1963). A spoiled identity refers to the identities of persons who are unable to conform to standards that society regards as normal. Disqualied from full social acceptance they are stigmatised individuals who must constantly strive to adjust to their precarious social identities. The research here suggests that some homeless women both adapt to, and resist a homeless identity, and to being conned to the streets and to institutional spaces by engaging in identity work that enables them to be in highly visible public spaces and buildings. Identity work is dened as the range of activities individuals engage in to create, present and sustain personal identities that are congruent with and supportive of the selfconcept (Snow & Anderson, 1987). Homeless womens identitiesthe way they see themselves in relation to their homelessness and the way others view thememerged as a signicant factor inuencing their day-to-day lives and use of space. The homeless women in this study presented themselves as legitimate users of public spaces in three ways: through efforts to retain their pre-homeless identity; through the presentation of a respectable self, which rendered their homelessness invisible; and by dis-identifying with other more stigmatised homeless people. The homeless women participating in the research attempted to retain a sense of themselves, and their identities prior to becoming homeless, in a bid to salvage the self (Snow & Anderson, 1993) and maintain some dignity and self-worth in straitened circumstances. In order to do so, faced with particular situations, women tried to adhere to certain self-imposed standards of behaviour regardless of how desperate they were to meet their immediate needs. They were also inclined towards acting in the same way they would have done prior to being homeless, often involving maintaining their privacy and independence. Women spoke for example, about being [a] private person and wanting to stay on my own and the difculties this presented to them when not having a place to

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call their own. Thus, some women reported foregoing the company and security of sheltering with other rough sleepers in a bid to protect their privacy, a commodity that was in short supply on the streets and was highly prized by some. For this reason (as well as for safety reasons) they avoided well-known places on the streets where groups of homeless people congregated and slept, preferring to maintain their independence by sleeping alone at night in hidden public places such as bin bays: I just thought I was better off on my own because being on the street I saw other people, you know they had like sleep, places they slept together and it was a partnership with that . . . and it didnt work . . . as far as I was concerned I was on the street, it was up to me to look after myself, nobody else. And I wasnt prepared to look after anyone else either. More broadly, women also retained their own standards of behaviour that guided their being in public spaces. It was important, for example, that they adhered to their pre-homeless moral and ethical standards, which in some cases meant being honest and not stealing. The following account describes how one woman desisted from stealing food (although her companion was doing so) in order to survive while sleeping rough because of religious convictions: We put cardboard on the oor so wed just sleep there and then shed always go out, shed nick sandwiches and stuff you know . . . cos I wouldnt steal cos I was like oh Gods watching me, Im not going to steal. For other women, it was important that they tried to keep up interests they had prior to being homeless, such as listening to music, reading and going on the internet. Hence, libraries were often used as places of retreat by homeless women where they could pursue their hobbies and interests, as the following two comments make clear. One avid reader explains how she spends a large part of her day: I spend most of my time going to the library, going to the libraries and that, I like reading Virginia Andrews books and things like that. I keep myself busy reading and that. Another woman describes the pleasure she and a homeless friend derive from music: Shes amazing, wed go . . . cos she loves erm, she loves rock music and I love jazz so wed go into the library and shed go to the rock section, Id go to the jazz section and wed just sit there until the library closed. In the same vein, homeless women also frequented public places such as art centres that had listening booths, which afforded them some much-needed privacy. Women spoke about how being in these listening booths provided them with a safe space to have some time to themselves, although they were in a very public setting. By frequenting public buildings such as libraries and art centres women were maintaining links with their former (pre-homeless) lives, which also afforded them some measure of self-worth, and the idea that even though they were homeless they could be among non-homeless people carrying out ordinary everyday activities. In this way they were quietly resisting the spoiled identity that was very much a part of what being homeless is all about.

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The homeless women interviewed were acutely aware of the stigma associated with being a woman without a home. Other peoples reactions to them ranged from helpfulness to disdain and outright hostility, which impacted on how they saw and presented themselves. They were aware of the stereotype of homeless people as being dirty, dangerous and at the margins of decent society. Hence, they anticipated the adverse reactions people would display towards them by strategically presenting a different outward self to what they were feeling inside. Women often projected an image of toughness, for example, when they felt unsafe in order to deter anyone from approaching them and to enable them to be in the city centre alone. This was especially important after ofce hours, and at night, when the city became a more threatening place to inhabit. For example, the following respondent presented a different (in this case masculine) outward image which is at odds with her self and which she describes as actually a lie: I just used to walk around glaring at people, sort of trying to look dangerous, trying to keep people away from me, which is actually a lie because I was a very fragile person, very scared . . . [Its important] that you look like they dont need to rescue you and try to look as boyish as possible . . . so wear a baseball cap and hood. In the case of rough sleepers, projecting an image of toughness not only protected them from the unwelcome advances of other homeless people, but also from homeless agencies, some of whom were intent on moving them on from public places by rescuing them, as alluded to in the above comment. Rough sleepers also spoke in moving terms about the effect that being homeless had on their self-worth, as encapsulated in the following words: I lost my soul. I dont have any personality. I was just another bum on a street corner asking for some change. And thats how I felt in myself. I didnt really care what anyone thought of me because all I saw myself was such a piece of shit that you couldnt possibly think better of me. However, they articulated a diversity of tactics and strategies in order to deal with being homeless and to getting by from day-to-day, which suggests that there was some resistance to that spoiled identity. These women managed the stigma associated with being homeless in ways that gave them a tenuous claim to be in public spaces that have heretofore been presumed out of bounds for marginalised inhabitants of urban spaces. These women were alert to how stigmatised they were in the eyes of others and went to some lengths to avoid being easily identied as homeless by appearing presentable. This involved retaining the ability to care for themselves and their bodies thereby maintaining a measure of independence from institutional provision. One woman explains the importance of her appearance and self-image, which was brought to the fore (in a very literal sense) when she saw herself in a mirror: I also knew some really nice toilets in the hospital and there were mirrors in there. I have some eczema and get it on my face and I hadnt looked in the mirror for ages and then I saw myself in that mirror and didnt recognise myself. Its important to look presentable, when I was walking around and that, it was important.

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Women placed much importance on personal hygiene and having clean clothes to wear in order that they could maintain some semblance of personal respect and also blend in with other customers and users of public buildings. Not wanting to be identied as being homeless also meant avoiding any outward signals that would indicate such a status. Hence, not being seen carrying sleeping bags or blankets assumed a critical importance in the day-to-day strategies of these women. One woman decided against having a sleeping bag, preferring to wear a large, black cape under which she concealed books and clothes: I didnt want to carry a sleeping bag around with me because I didnt want a sign on me saying Im homeless, so just things to be worn at night and paperwork and books. Part of the strategy that was needed to maintain a valorised sense of self while being homeless was the avoidance of behaviour that for them was identied with archetypal male homelessness. Hence, they reported going hungry rather than eating food from dustbins because this would be the ultimate humiliation in a public place. One woman explained that regardless of how desperate she was for a smoke she would never pick up discarded cigarette butts from the ground, using this as an example of how she still maintained certain standards of behaviour regardless of her homeless status. She added: You know at the end of the day, I was homeless, but I still had my pride and I still had my dignity. It was apparent that some women were also trying to distance themselves from other homeless people to whom an even greater stigma was attached, for example, those who were drug users, smack-heads and prostitutes, by presenting a respectable appearance (this did not apply to those respondents who were themselves drug users and prostitutes). On occasions this same impulse led women to lie about their homeless status: Q: Are there times when youve pretended you arent homeless? A: Yes . . . when Im meeting people or something. Its not a good way to start a conversationby the way I sleep on the streets, cos a lot of the time I ave kept myself clean while Ive been on the streets so most people avent really noticed . . . Its embarrassing really to admit it . . . straight away . . . to get the stigma off [being homeless] . . . Yeah, cos the general perception . . . is if youre homeless you must be a smackhead, thats the basic thing, if youre homeless youve gotta be on drugs. These homeless women were concerned to not all be seen in the same light by virtue of their homelessness, and this had a direct impact on what they would or would not do in order to get by. It was important to some women that they avoided the stereotypical image of homeless people hanging around street corners begging, for example. Some of the women interviewed were particularly concerned to distance themselves from people who sold the Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people) as they were thought to be drug users who gave other homeless people a bad name. One woman gave the following explanation as to why she would never, under any circumstances, become a Big Issue vendor:

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I just think, look at the people who sell it, theyre all smack eads, theyve all got some dirty abit, they sell it to make a buck so they can buy a bag. Sorry, thats only my opinion. Some women regarded selling the Big Issue as the most visible way of making public their homelessness status, something that was to be particularly avoided in their own home town or city. To be without secure accommodation and to end up on the streets was one thing, to be readily identied by family, friends and acquaintances as being homeless was quite another: Because people see you on the street that you know . . . embarrassing. Some also distanced themselves from sex workers, both for their own personal safety and in order to challenge the assumption that all homeless women were engaged in sex work. They avoided using facilities such as phone boxes at certain times, and stayed away from areas if there was any possibility they would be mistaken for a prostitute. Nonetheless, they still had to confront this particular myth on a regular basis, which had a signicant impact on their use of public space, particularly at night. One homeless woman (who had spent 18 months living in her car) experienced particular difculties in using a layby to sleep because of the assumption by the police that she was a sex worker touting for business with lorry drivers: The number of times Ive been arrested, told to shift . . . because a woman sitting, sleeping in her car one night whether shes on her way from Edinburgh to London is irrelevant, if shes sleeping and theres a bloody wagon in front and a wagon behind youre on the game. This meant that she was effectively excluded from legitimately using a public space and was denied the facilities readily available to other drivers. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has presented an analysis of homeless womens use of public spaces. In doing so it challenges several key assumptions about homeless women and the public domain in which their daily activities are carried out. By contrast to earlier literature which has tended to locate homeless women mainly on the margins of the urban milieu (Cloke et al, 2003; Radley et al., 2007) it positions homeless women both in and beyond the streets, and asserts that they can and do occupy prime public space in order to meet their needs. This paper argues that strategies of resistance and identity are being played out beyond the streets (as in Wardhaugh, 1999, and May et al., 2007), and importantly also beyond homeless institutional spaces and the private realm, thereby expanding homeless womens spatial boundaries into semi-private and highly visible public spaces, which heretofore were presumed to be closed to them. Although it is suggested that much homelessness research has failed to locate women in public spaces, an alternative explanation is acknowledged: that homeless womens actions and behaviours are perhaps shifting as they increasingly stake a claim to spaces from which they have been largely absent but are no more. Either way, it is time to acknowledge that homeless women use public spaces and that such spaces full an important function in their daily lives.

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This study also has implications for homelessness policies and practice. Additional research is needed to determine how providers of generic public services such as libraries can be linked to homeless service providers to improve the outcomes for some homeless women. To take one example, libraries can serve as a valuable source of information on health and social care for those who are most excluded from mainstream services. The research here clearly points to the importance of recreational activities as an important component in homeless womens coping strategies (Klitzing, 2003), a topic that has received little attention in the homelessness literature. That some homeless women inhabit public spaces in preference to homeless institutional spaces points to the need for a more nuanced understanding of the motivations and resources of homeless women, which recognises that they themselves are the experts in what would constitute appropriate and gender-sensitive service provision. Echoing Whitzman (2006, p. 396) the question is how to tap into their considerable powers of observation and survival, in order to provide the best services in all settings. The ndings broadly support the post-modern characterisation of urban areas as hostile places for obviously homeless people and other excluded groups (Zuchin, 1998): the women participating in this research reported only being able to occupy the public spaces in which they spent time by devising strategies for resisting exclusion (invisibility, timekeeping, presentational and behavioural adaptation and so on, discussed previously), and that a failure to do so would, and often did, result in their expulsion. Several of the women interviewed with relatively long histories of homelessness had noticed changes over time, commenting that it had become far more difcult to overtly occupy public space as a homeless person. However the post-modern pre-occupation with spaces of consumption (semi-private shopping malls are a prime example) has diverted attention away from public spaces that have not been privatised and are constituted as public buildings (museums and public galleries, for example). The results from this research suggest that the concept of the awed consumer might also be relevant to these publicly owned spaces, at least where the most marginalised of groups are concerned. The paper has described some of the innovative ways in which the homeless women interviewed circumvented and adapted to techniques designed to exclude awed consumers in a range of such public spaces. Indeed the women interviewed were neither treated signicantly differently in, nor perceived any distinction between, private spaces of consumption and publicly owned spaces. Unfortunately, the research data do not allow for a systematic comparison of respondents experiences in different types of space and the tactics they employ there (sample sizes would be too small for any robust and meaningful conclusions to be drawn from such analysis), but it is suggested that this would be an interesting subject for further inquiry. In a similar vein, examination of the role of cities in homeless womens experiences of public space may also prove valuable. Do some cities have more permissive policies or approaches towards marginalised groups? Or are they characterised by the presence of a consumerist class? How does this inuence homeless womens use of and behaviour within public space? Do homeless women read and recognise apparent differences between cities and adapt their behaviour accordingly (for example, being more overtly homeless in more tolerant cities)? Homeless women not only occupy public spaces for their own ends and purposes, but are adept at negotiating access with gatekeepers, and moving between visibility and invisibility in order to do so. Ultimately, their resistance is inextricably bound up with

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where they can be and do homelessness, and the legitimacy of their claims to being in public spaces and buildings. These womens strategies to secure some measure of autonomy are mediated by their own construction of what it means to be homeless and female, which is not xed in time and space, and which is shaped by signicant others.

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