Homeless women in Spain. Narratives about gender, social vulnerability and welfare scheme's effects

Abstract

Women´s homelessness represents a problematic needed of an analysis at the Spanish context. Last years the called “feminization of the poverty” has showed an increasing number of women in homeless situation that inform on the necessity of empirical studies about this issue. Therefore the objective of this paper based on a qualitative research, has been to know about the homeless women's experiences, trying to elucidate the way which social violence and gender´s vulnerability become carved on the life´s stories of these women. Likewise, attention have been paid to the welfare scheme´s and professional praxis´s effects over the women homelessness condition. Obtained results show the victimization experiences impact on the biographical trajectories of the homeless women, which the gender´s violence and abuse situations are recurrent. These women narratives allow us to recognize the lack of the welfare intervention model showing the negative effects generated by the welfare scheme.