‘I Will Go Home’, With ‘Home’ Meaning ‘Basement’: Homeless Women’s Daily Practices and Coping Strategies

Abstract

The article considers daily practices and coping strategies of the homeless women with a focus on how the homeless women live through, survive and cope with hardships. The author singles out two trajectories of how people become homeless: they either lose their home as a result of fraudulent property transactions, a fire or an accident or are forced to leave their home. The article also examines three ways to put up with homelessness: to seek help from charitable organizations; to ask family and friends for help; to normalize life on the streets. The article highlights that homeless women are “invisible” and describes the causes of female homelessness and survival strategies.

Acknowledgments. The author expresses sincere gratitude to the scientific advisor N.A. Nartova for her help in writing the Master’s thesis, organizations and point men who made it possible to get access to the field as well as anonymous reviewers whose comments and remarks helped improve and finish the article.