Single women and the journey to exit homelessness

The issue of homelessness has come to the fore front of social ills plaguing the Canadian society. There is an overwhelming consensus among researchers and social scientists that the numbers of the homeless are on the increase, their average age is dropping, and more women and family units are becoming part of this population. Although it has been observed that women experience homelessness in ways that are vastly different from men, they are generally underrepresented in published literature on homelessness. The few studies that have focused on homeless women often study those with children and rarely explore the meaning of the exiting experience from homelessness among them, especially those without children. The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of the lived experience of exiting homelessness among women without children. Convenience and snow ball sampling techniques were used to recruit 12 women exiting homelessness in Calgary and who lived in transitional type accommodations. The texts resulting from audio-taped interviews, participant observations, and reflective journal entries by the researcher constituted data for analysis.